The security forces gunned down a top LeT terrorist Asif Maqbool Bhat in Sopore district on Wednesday, September 11, just two days after the Jammu and Kashmir police busted a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) module in the Valley.

Jammu and Kashmir police said that Bhat was killed following a brief shootout. “Sopore update: In a brief shootout one terrorist was killed in #Sopore. Further details shall follow,” tweeted Kashmir Zone Police.

Sopore update:
In a brief shoutout one terrorist is killed in #Sopore. Further details shall follow.@JmuKmrPolice @SoporePolice

— Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice) September 11, 2019

“Based on specific inputs, we set up checkpoints to track and block Asif. We intercepted him and he attacked us. He threw a grenade. A few police personnel were injured but they are out of danger,” News18 quoted J&K DGP chief Dilbag Singh as telling the media.

“Terrorists have been distributing posters in south Kashmir… There have also been incidents reported where terrorists manhandled people,” he said.

Police said that Bhat was responsible for the recent shootout that injured three members of a fruit trader’s family and a five-year-old girl. He had also shot a migrant labourer named Shafi Aaalm in Sopore.

On September 9, eight militants from the Sopore region were arrested in a joint operation by Jammu and Kashmir Police, Army, Central Reserve Police Force and other security forces, after busting a terror module of the LeT. As per the report Bhat belonged to Lashkar-e-Taiba and had become active after the Centre scrapped special status for the state, 

According to Javaid Iqbal, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Sopore district, the men had conspired to print posters in an attempt to threaten locals against venturing out of their homes, either for trade, travel, schools or offices. These posters would then be distributed for circulation in local villages.

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