NEW DELHI: Hizbul Mujahideen has emerged as the prime suspect in Tuesdays killing of five non-Kashmiri labourers in Kulgam, according to sources in J&K police who blamed the the terrorist organisation for the recent spate of attack on outsiders.
The determination about Hizbuls hand in the targeting of the workers from West Bengal followed J&K police identifying Aijaz Ahmad Malik, a Hizb terrorist, as the killer of Narayan Dutt, a truck driver from Jammu. Dutt was killed on Monday as part of a campaign to target truckers and other outsiders.
Malik was killed the same day in an encounter with terrorists near the spot in Bijbehara, Anantnag, where Dutt had been killed. Son of Abdul Ahad Malik and resident of Dardsun Kralpora in Kupwara district, Aijaz had gone missing on September 28 last year and went on to join HuM. He has been an active terrorist ever since.
“This establishes the complicity of Hizbul Mujahideen in the terror attacks targeted at non-Kashmiri outsiders in J&K. Hizbul is also suspected of killing five labourers — all from West Bengal — in Kulgam on Tuesday evening,” a senior intelligence officer said.
While HuM is an indigenous terror outfit, with most of its members and recruits being Kashmiris, it has become a vital part of the terror machinery assembled by Pakistan. Its top leadership based in PoK gets directions, funding, resources and training from Pakistans ISI. Its cadres work in coordination with Pakistan-based foreign terrorist outfits active in J&K, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, with their familiarity with the local terrain providing a lethality to the jihadis pushed in from across the border.
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