Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have killed a top militant who pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, officials said, describing his death as a major blow to militancy in the disputed territory.
As the news of Zakir Musa’s death spread on Thursday hundreds of protesters spilled out on the streets and clashed with government forces in many areas, including in the main city of Srinagar.
Authorities cut Internet services across the Kashmir Valley and imposed a curfew in large parts of the territory to stop the protests spreading.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Musa, 25, was trapped alone late on Thursday by soldiers and counterinsurgency police inside a hideout near the southern town of Tral and asked to surrender, a top police official said.
“In return he fired a grenade followed by bullets and was later killed during the ensuing gun battle,” the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Musa in 2017 announced the creation of his group Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind and declared his allegiance to al-Qaeda, saying in a statement that he was fighting to establish an Islamic caliphate in Kashmir.
Musa dropped out of his engineering course in 2013 to join Kashmir’s largest militant group Hizbul Mujahidin fighting Indian rule and later became a part of a group led by charismatic militant Burhan Wani.
Wani’s group deftly used social media to recruit young men into militancy by revealing their faces and openly challenged Indian rule.
The death of the popular militant leader in 2016 sparked wide-scale protests across the territory that lasted months, and left more than 100 civilians dead and thousands injured.
Musa later took Wani’s place, but in 2017 broke away from the group to form Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, which officials say was an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Kashmir.
The group threatened separatist leaders opposed to Indian rule if they got in his way of fighting for a caliphate.
Hizbul Mujahidin, whose leaders are based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, later dissociated itself with Musa, most of whose associates have since been killed by government forces.
“Musa was left with just one or two associates,” the police officer said.
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