NEW DELHI: The mastermind of the
Sunjuwan terror attack was on Monday killed in a shootout by the
Army in south Kashmir.
Mufti Waqas
was killed in an encounter at Hatiwara area of Lethpora village in a joint operation of the Army's 50RR, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police's SOG.
"The mastermind of the Sunjuwan terrorist attack and Letapore terrorist attack,
Jaish-e-Mohammad
operational commander Mufti Waqas has been eliminated in a surgical operation," said Srinagar-based defence spokesperson Col Rajesh Kalia.
"Weapons and incriminating materials like IED preparation material have been recovered. He is a foreign terrorist," said Kashmir IG SP Pani.
One policeman also sustained minor injuries in the encounter and was shifted to a nearby hospital.
Waqas was behind the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) attack on an Army camp in Jammu's Sunjuwan on February 10 this year, which led to the deaths of 10 people, including six Army personnel, one civilian and three terrorists.
A group of
heavily-armed men attacked the camp of the 36 brigade of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry before dawn.
Waqas's death is being seen as a major blow to the terror outfit.
"This has resulted in a major dent to the designs of JeM, as after elimination of their earlier operational commander Noor Mohd Tantray in the same area in December 17, his successor too has been killed," said Col Kalia.
According to officials, Waqas, a Pakistani national who had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 2017, was functioning as the operational commander of the terror outfit and had sent 'fidayeens' (suicide attackers) from Tral in South Kashmir to Jammu where they had carried out the strike on the Army camp on February 10.
Waqas was also responsible for radicalisng local boys Fardeen Khandey and Manzoor Baba who had carried out a suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora on the intervening night of December 30 and December 31 last year.
(With inputs from agencies)
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