Two militants, including Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) Naveed Jatt who was accused of murdering senior journalist Shujaat Bukhari, were killed in a gunfight with security forces on Wednesday in Kashmir’s Budgam district.
Bukhari, a veteran journalist and editor of Rising Kashmir, was shot dead by terrorists outside his office in the heart of Srinagar in June this year.
The gun battle broke out after security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Budgam Wednesday morning following information about the presence of militants there, a police official said.
The militants opened fire at the security personnel and the forces retaliated, he said. Internet services in Budgam have been snapped as a precautionary measure.
Jatt, an LeT militant of Pakistani origin, had escaped from the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar this February. Jatt was active in south Kashmir, the hotbed of militancy, and involved in multiple attacks between 2013-2014 before he escaped from the hospital .
The son of a truck driver from Multan, Jatt was active in south Kashmir’s Anantnag, Pulwama and Shopian districts. According to police records, he was arrested on September 19, 2014, in Sempora Bijbehara in Anantnag and was lodged in Srinagar’s Rainawari jail after being charged with murder and attempt to murder.
Jatt was wanted in several cases of terror attacks in the state. Sources in the police said Jatt, also known as Abu Hanzulla, killed two policemen and an assistant sub-inspector in one of the attacks. A resident of Multan in Pakistan’s Punjab province, he was also involved in another attack in which five policemen and two civilians were seriously injured.