On October 24, the Jammu and Kashmir Police announced that Zia Mustafa, a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant from Pakistan, had been shot dead near t...
On October 24, the Jammu and Kashmir Police announced that Zia Mustafa, a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant from Pakistan, had been shot dead near the Line of Control in Poonch. Accused of planning the massacre of 24 Kashmiri Pandits at Nadimarg in Kashmir in March 2003, Mustafa had spent the last 18 years in jail, most of them in Srinagar, before he was moved to Jammu’s high-security Kot Bhalwal jail in 2018.
According to the police, from inside the jail, he was in touch with Pakistani militants who had recently infiltrated into Jammu’s Poonch district. He was allegedly helping them navigate the terrain.
For about three weeks now, the army and police have been combing forests in the Mendhar area of Poonch, looking for the group of militants. Occasionally, there has been exchange of fire – nine soldiers have been killed in the operation so far.
On October 22, Mustafa was brought to Mendhar on a 10-day remand. He was to help security forces identify a “terrorist hideout” in the Bhatta Durian forest in Mendhar. When they approached the hideout on October 24, the police statement said, the infiltrators opened fire, injuring two policemen, a jawan and Mustafa. His body could not be extracted from the...
