SRINAGAR: Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar’s nephew Abdul Rehman alias Fauji Bhai, who had masterminded last week’s foiled car bomb attack targeting security forces in south Kashmir’s Pulwama, was on Wednesday shot dead along with two unidentified terrorists in what is being called the “second major counter-terrorism success” in the Valley within a month of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo being killed.
The Pakistani terrorist and his two aides were gunned down by a joint team of J&K Police, the Army’s 53 Rashtriya Rifles and the CRPF’s 183 Battalion during a cordon-and-search-operation at Astan Mohalla in Kangan village of Pulwama. A soldier was injured in the gun battle, sources said.
“Multan native Fauji Bhai, who operated in Kashmir with multiple aliases, was an expert bomb-maker and a member of the Afghan war militia before he infiltrated into the Valley in 2017. The May 28 car bomb attack that we averted was to be possibly his biggest moment,” IGP (Kashmir range) Vijay Kumar said in Srinagar. “We have called some people to identity the other two slain terrorists. If they turn out to be locals, their parents will be allowed to participate in their burial at Baramulla district of north Kashmir.”
The modus operandi of the foiled suicide bombing mission was eerily similar to the February 14, 2019 car bomb attack in Pulwama that killed 40 CRPF personnel. TOI was the first to report that the mastermind of the terror plot was a nephew of the Jaish chief.
Security forces are, meanwhile, going after Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Kashmir commander Abdullah Rashid Gazi, who is suspected to be “hiding in the woods” in the Khrew area of Pulwama. “We managed to identify Gazi despite Jaish being very careful about not disclosing who its commander in a particular region is. We might be able to catch him where he is hiding or smoke him out,” Kumar said.
Two more Jaish bomb-makers from Pakistan, Waleed Bhai and Lamboo Bhai, are on the security forces’ radar.
Flanked by senior Army and CRPF officers, the IGP said: “The number of terrorists killed this year is around 75, and the majority of them were commanders of various units of Jaish, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.”
Fauji Bhai, whose real name is said to be Ikram Hussian, is the third relative of the Jaish chief to be killed in Kashmir over the past couple of years. Mohammad Usman Ibrahim, another nephew of Masood, was gunned down in an encounter with security forces in the Tral area of Pulwama in October 2018. Jaish terrorist Mohammad Umar, also related to the outfit’s supreme commander, was killed in an exchange of fire with security personnel on April 4 last year.
