Investigation begins into Tral encounter incident

Srinagar: The police on Tuesday it has started investigation into the death of two persons including a militant in Tral township of Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, which had sparked off violent protests leaving 32 persons including 20 security personnel injured.

"As of now the investigations we are conducting revealed that one of the deceased along with the three associates had gone to the forest area to meet his brother, Burhan, who is a listed militant and there was an exchange of fire between the militants and an Army patrol," Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Syed Javid Mujtuba Gillani told reporters here.

He said a routine patrol of the Army had gone into Kamla forests in Tral, 35 kms from here, yesterday, and came under fire from the militants hiding there.

"Thereafter, body of one Khalid Muzafar Wani was recovered along with two AK-47 rifles. One of the rifles recovered was the one which had been snatched from a policeman on August 12 last year," he said.

"While they were having the meeting they saw the approaching Army patrol which led to an exchange of fire," he said.

Gillani said, one more body identified as that of Younis Ahmad Ganaie, an active militant of Tral, was recovered during the search of the area today.

"The deceased was involved in the incident related to firing on one Rafiq Dada in Tral township on April 6," he said.

Referring to the protests and subsequent clashes between the local residents protesting the killing of the two youth and security forces, he said, law-enforcing agencies exercised maximum restrain despite serious provocation.

"There were instances of stone-pelting in Tral and surrounding areas but the police and paramilitary forces exercised restraint even after a rifle of CRPF personal deployed on law and order duty was snatched," he said, adding, 12 protesters and 20 security personnel were injured in the clashes.

On the allegations of protesters that the duo were killed in a fake encounter and the body of Khalid bore no bullet marks, the IGP said, "We have conducted the post-mortem of Khalid's body and once we get the report we will be able to say the nature of injury on his body...It will take some days.

"This is all what we have so far. Why they had gone to the forest area is again the subject matter of investigation and we are still investigating," he said.

On Army statement that Khalid was also an overground worker, Gillani said, "Ee have certain instances and we have certain proofs that he was involved in overground activities of the terrorists."