Police tracked Naikoo’s movement for six months: IGP
Says his killing will help contain militancy in Kashmir
Srinagar: Inspector General of police Kashmir zone, Vijay Kumar Thursday while terming the killing of Hizbul Mujahedeen Chief commander Riyaz Naikoo as “big jolt” for militancy in Kashmir, said Naikoo’s killing will help contain militancy in the Valley to a large extent.
He said that police tracked Naikoo’s movement for almost six months and after strenuous efforts managed to kill him during an encounter.
Addressing press conference here, the IGP said that Naikoo was very influential militant commander, who would release videos almost every month to lure youth towards militancy and to pass directions to his cadre to execute civilian and police killing.
“I will not hesitate in saying that Naikoo was a very influential militant commander,” the IGP said.
“His killing is a big success for us and major jolt for Hizb. Naikoo’s killing will help contain militancy in Valley,” Kumar said.
Asked whether militant leadership of Hizb strands wiped out, the IGP said there will be some other leader as well but we will go after him too.
The IGP said that there was massive stone-pelting in and around the encounter site. “Protesters damaged two of our vehicles,” Kumar said while divulging information about the encounter that led to the killing of Hizb Commander.
He said from past six months, Jammu Kashmir Police was after Reyaz Naikoo.
“The basic task of police is to generate human and technical intelligence. Our DIG Atul and his team were chasing Naikoo for a long time but from past week, when we suffered some set back in North Kashmir, the team got more involved in tracking the movements of Naikoo,” he said.
“Every movement of Naikoo was being tracked. Some of the policemen slept for only one or two hours. During our hunt for Naikoo, we managed to bust at least 6 hideouts, used by Reyaz Naikoo. We tracked the movements of Naikoo and his sympathizers. We arrested and interrogated some of the OGW’s and got important information,” he added.
The IGP said that first day when police cordoned off the area where Naikoo was hiding, they didn’t find anything.
“We were sure that Naikoo is here and thus didn’t lift the cordon. We called army and troopers. Next day, when we started search operation again, militants fired on us and we retaliated and killed the commander,” he said.
Giving details about the Handwara encounter, the IGP said Lashkar commander Haider’s killing was also a big jolt for Lashkar.
“As far as second incident at Handwara in which three CRPF men were killed, we have identified two Lashkar militants involved in the act,” he said.
On a query about emergence of ‘Resistance Front’, the IGP said TRF is not a new outfit but a “shadow outfit of Lashkar.”
“Post August 05 last year, there was international pressure on Pakistan to stop militancy, so Lashkar floated The Resistance Front (TRF),” he added.
In Handwara encounter, Haider and his associate killed belonged to Lashkar but TRF claimed responsibility,” Kumar while replying to a query about communication blockade in Kashmir said that it was necessary to prevent rumour mongering and to maintain in Law and order.
“We will review the situation and restore the services soon,” he said.
The IGP said that police won’t hand over the bodies of militants or any civilian to families, till the coronavirus threat is over.
“We admitted that the civilian killed in Handwara was innocent. We motivated his family and buried him in Baramulla in presence of his parents. There were apprehensions that a large number of people will participate in his funeral if we hand over the body to family. Till Coronavirus crisis is not over, we won’t handover the bodies of militants to families,” he said. (with inputs from KNO, KNT)
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