J&K Encounter: Longest Serving Hizbul Commander Farooq Bhat Among 5 Terrorists Killed In Kulgam

Identity Cards recovered after the encounter of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) commander Farooq Nali and four militants by security forces, at Kader in Kulgam on Thursday. (ANI Photo)

Five Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, including top operational commander Farooq Ahmad Bhat, were killed in an encounter with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Thursday, officials said. Speaking about the joint operation, security forces termed it a “big success” for them. Following the successful operation in Kulgam, the army and Jammu Kashmir police held a press conference and briefed about the joint operation. 

“I congratulate Army 34 Police Kulgam and CRPF on conducting a successful operation,” Brigadier Anirudh Chauhan, sector commander 2RR, said. He further stated, “We were after the group of HM from the last some time we got big success when we got information about the terrorist last evening, and we started a cordon in the Kaddar village of Kulgam at midnight, and at 3:30 am the terrorist fired upon forces. we first evacuated local people out of the area and kept terrorist engaged in cordon , terrorist fired indiscriminately and it was effectively retaliated then we eliminated 5 top terrorist of Hizbul Mujahideen. 

Chauhan also said that among the terrorists killed during the joint operation was Farooq Ahmed Bhat, operational commander of Hizbul Mujahideen. He had joined the terror ranks in 2015, and since 2016 he had been radicalizing people in Kashmir and getting them to join Hizbul Mujahideen. He was recruiting young youth of Kashmir and was very active in that.

The senior officer further stated that the killing of Bhat and his associates means a big setback to Hizbul Mujahideen in south Kashmir. “Our two soldiers got injured, and they are stable, and soon they will join us back,” he said. “It’s a huge setback to Hizbul Mujahideen, but we can’t say they are all finished; there will soon be peace in Kashmir, and we are working for it,” the commander said.

DIG South Kashmir Javid Matto, who also was in the press conference, said 5 terrorists got killed. all five terrorists were of Kulgam area Farooq joined 2015 , Mushtaq joined in 2020 they were involved in many FIRs , Farooq was having 37 FIRs , and one FIR against him was of a rape case. it was joint operation, he said.

Javid added, “We had information about their activities in the area from the last so many months, and since the last two weeks, we enhanced vigilance on them, and last night an encounter happened, and the group was eliminated. He said the encounter lasted for 5-6 hours. 

They were all old terrorists, not new terrorists. one, new recruitment is coming down , we had many successful operations in few last months in south Kashmir and this was a big one. Security forces had recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition, including lakhs of rupees, from the dead bodies. Recoveries include 1 AK56, 4 AK47s, 2 grenades, 70 rounds, 21 magazines, 5 pouches, and 2-3 lakh cash. 

This is a major success for security forces in South Kashmir since October 20. Security forces have killed now 14 terrorists in Kashmir and have arrested 17 overground workers in Kashmir.