In a significant achievement on Saturday, the Jammu and Kashmir Police along with the security forces have eliminated the fugitive masterminds of the deadly Pulwama fidayeen attack of February 2019, Mohammad Ismail Alvi aka Saifullah aks Lamboo and Sameer Ahmad Dar, in an encounter in the high altitude Marsar area of Dachigam National Park in Central Kashmir.

According to the official sources, the operation was launched jointly by a unit of the Para commandos, J&K Police’s Special Operations Group and the CRPF after receiving specific information about the presence of four to six Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists in Marsar area, on 27 July.

The JeM militants, according to the tip off, had established a hideout in the high altitude area over Dachigam National Park. The security forces amid inclement weather took a circuitous route and it took them over 72 hours to lay siege to a Gujjar dhok. Even as two militants got killed in the encounter in the wee hours on Saturday, two to four are believed to have escaped and were reportedly hiding in the dense forest cover. Both the neutralised terrorists were buried on the same heights.

An army officer said that all the inmates of the Gujjar hutment were safe as the forces used all the tactics to protect them. They narrated to the Police that the terrorists had stayed there at gun point. The officer said that Lamboo and his associates had tried to sexually exploit some women in upper Tral.

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Inspector General of Police, Kashmir Zone, Vijay Kumar, and General Officer Commanding 15 Corps, Lt Gen D.P. Pandey, said at a joint press conference that JeM’s Pakistani terrorist Mohammad Ismail Alvi alias Lamboo was the mastermind of the major terror strike that left 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel dead and several others wounded at Lethapora, near Awantipora, on 14 February 2019.

The encounter took place in the wee hours on Saturday in the high altitude Nambian and Marsar pastures. Two militants were killed. One of them was subsequently identified as Mohammad Ismail Alvi aka Saifullah aka Adnan aka Lamboo of Pakistan.

“He was a close associate of Abdul Rehman alias Fauji alias Idrees Bhai of Multan Pakistan who, along with two local associates, was killed in an encounter at Kangan, Pulwama, on 3 June 2020”, Gen Pandey asserted.

Lamboo, according to the Police, was trying to re-establish and strengthen the JeM outfit and utilize Awantipora, especially Kakpora and Pampore areas of Pulwama, as a hotbed for receiving new terror groups and their transportation to different districts of J&K for carrying out subversive attacks. IGP said that Lamboo was closely associated with the JeM chief Masood Azhar and had infiltrated into this side of Kashmir in the year 2017 through Shakargarh sector.“He had also visited several training camps of JeM in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the Police spokesman asserted.

He had earlier escaped from many encounters or cordon and search operations including at Doniwari Chadoora, in Budgam district, on 4 March 2020, Parigam Jagir Pulwama on 19 November 2020 and Kalenvan, Bijbehara, in Anantnag district, on 7 July 2021.

IGP said as many as 19 terrorists and their OWGs (Over Ground Workers) had been found involved in the Pulwama highway strike. “Out of the 19 militants, eight, including Adil Dar, Mudasir Khan, Umar Farooq, Kamran, Qari Yasir, Sajjad Bhat besides Lamboo and Sameer Dar today, were killed in different encounters”. Seven militants and OGWs had been arrested and four more are still absconding.

Sameer Ahmad Dar @Hanzala Jihadi son of Mohammad Subhan Dar resident of Gundibagh, Kakapora Pulwama, along with Lamboo, Kamran and Masood Azhar’s nephew Umer Farooq, had played a key role in providing logistics and fabricating the massive IED that killed the 40 CRPF personnel in the car bomb strike at Lethapora, on Srinagar-Jammu highway, on 14 February 2019. Both, A++ category terrorist Lamboo and A+ category terrorist Sameer Dar figured in the NIA chargesheet.

With Saturday’s encounter, 8 of the 19 terrorists & overground workers involved in the Lethpora Pulwama strike have been killed, 7 have been arrested and 4 are still absconding.

“Sameer Dar was also involved in a series of grenade attacks on Police/SF including attack on Army camp Kakapora, patrolling party at Gundibagh and killing of 02 CRPF personnel at Chinar Bagh and Railway Kakapora for which several cases are registered against him. He was also influential in motivating and recruiting the youth to join terror folds and brainwashing them to seek new members in the terrorist ranks", said a spokesman of the J&K Police.

The spokesman said that the incriminating material and the arms and ammunition seized at the site of the encounter included one AK-rifle, one M-4 Carbine, one Glock-19 pistol and one Chinese Pistol.

According to the J&K Police spokesman, Lamboo was a highly trained militant and an expert in making IEDs. He was instrumental in civilian killings and in planning and executing attacks on security establishments. “He was the mastermind and main accused in the February 2019 Lethpora Fidayeen attack. He was also involved in the killing of SPO Fayaz Ahmed, his wife and daughter in Parigam Tral on 28 June 2021”, the Police spokesman said.

“He was also instrumental in motivating and recruiting local youth to join the militant folds and also motivating them for stone pelting and other subversive activities”, the spokesman said. He had carried out most of the militant activities in the Police districts of Pulwama, Awantipora and Anantnag.

The suicide attack carried out by the JeM terrorist Adil Ahmad Dar brought India and Pakistan on the verge of a war as the Indian Air Force (IAF) crossed the LoC for the first time after the 1971 war and dropped bombs on one JeM encampment at Balakote in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.