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Wednesday, February 24, 2016

LeT says Pampore fidayeen attack was revenge for Shaista’s killing
 
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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JAMMU, Feb 23: Claiming responsibility for the audacious attack on the security forces, that left five personnel including two Captains and a civilian dead and 13 CRPF men injured at EDI Complex, near Pampore, Pakistan-based jihadist group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba on Tuesday said that the fidayeen strike was to avenge the killing of the University student Shaista Hamid.

Both around 20-year-old, Shaista Hamid and Danish Farooq were killed in the firing by Police and security forces during the course of an operation in which LeT militant Adil Ahmad Shergujri alias Abu Bakar was also killed in Lelhar village of Pulwama district on February 15. While as Shaista was M Ed student with IGNOU, Danish was a regular engineering student with Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipora. They had got killed when demonstrators clashed with Police and security forces and disrupted their operation that reportedly helped two holed up militants to escape.

LeT spokesman Dr Abdullah Gaznavi said in the statement that Captain Pawan Kumar had shot dead Shaista and Danish at Lelhar. “Captain Pawan Kumar’s death is the revenge for the death of Shaista. Militants have taken the revenge and done their job”, he said.

Defence sources admitted that Captain Pawan Kumar had participated in the counter-terrorist operation at Lelhar and sustained injury but insisted that Army had not fired upon the demonstrators. They said that Police and CRPF tackled with the law and order problem in the village while as Army dealt with the holed up militants.

LeT spokesman said that Chief of LeT Mehmood Shah paid tributes to the three militants killed in the fidayeen attack. According to him, the militants and the residents of Pampore area were “on one page” in fighting the Indian security forces that was evident from the demonstrations Sunday through Tuesday. He condemned the use of pellet guns against the civilian demonstrators by the security forces.

Even as all the three LeT militants died in the three-day-long gunfight, they left five security forces personnel, including Captain Pawan Kumar and Captain Tushar of Special Forces, dead and 13 CRPF personnel, including as assistant commandant, injured. One civilian, namely Abdul Gani Mir, who was a temporarily engaged gardener with EDI, also died in the encounter.

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[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

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