Srinagar, November 7 : Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir Range, Munir Ahmad Khan today asked Pakistan to claim body of nephew of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief who was killed in an encounter with government forces yesterday at Kandi Aglar village of Pulwama district.
Addressing a press conference jointly with senior army and CRPF officers, the IGP Kashmir said he is thankful to Jaish as they for the first time have owned a Pakistani militant. “He (Talha) is nephew of Maulana Masood Azhar. Now, we will take up the matter through proper channel and we will very firm request that please claim the body and take it because they have owned it,” he said, according to news agency GNS.
In reply to a question, he said it is for Pakistan to decide whether they will claim the body “but we will make a request”.
As already reported by GNS, a spokesman of Jaish had identified the three militants as Talha Rashid, the nephew of Masood Azhar, Muhammad and Wasim Ahmad, a local militant from Drubgam Pulwama. The GOC Victor Force, BS Raju said that that Wasim, a category C militant, is a local recruit and was involved in guiding and supporting JeM cadres.
“The prize catch of this particular operation was the two FTs (foreign terrorists). One of course is Talha Rashid, an A++ category militant. This man is supposed to be a nephew of Masood Azhar…The second one is Mohammad Bhai, again an A ++ category – the divisional commander of JeM, again a prize catch and we will continue to neutralise militant leaders,” he said. The GOC said also briefed the reporters about the M4 weapon recovered from the militants.
“We have reason to believe there are five to ten such weapons which could have been brought in by the terrorists who infiltrated recently. We have reason to believe that it is for the first time that an M4 Carbine has been recovered and this basically tells about the complicity of Pakistan abetting terrorism in India,” he said, adding that M4 is an advanced version, a carbine version, of the old M16 rifle which the US Army used in Vietnam war that is of 1960 vintage.
“The M4 carbine is of the 1990 vintage. It is shorter in length than M16 and it is little more effective than M16 in terms of range and metallurgy,” he said. The IGP Khan said that the numbers of Jaish militants keep on varying. “After different verifications or reports and according to our source reports, it seems we are left with around 16-20 JeM militants in the valley,” he said. He said after the recovery of the M4 weapon, the investigation part will start as to how it came into the hands of this group of Jaish.
“The matter will have to be taken thorough different channels, with concerned embassies and let us see. It is a subject matter of a thorough investigation,” he added. (GNS)