On May 3, Indian Army officials had faced down terrorists after an encounter broke out in Kashmir's Handwara region.
Two terrorists had been killed in the encounter at the Chanjmulla area of Handwara, which is part of north Kashmir's Kupwara district, officials had said on Sunday. According to the Inspector General of Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, top Lashkar-e Taiba commander, Haider from Pakistan, was killed in the Handwara encounter.
At the same time, there was an outpouring of grief as five Indian army officers were killed in the encounter. The slain officials included Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, the commanding officer of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles unit. He had been awarded gallantry medals twice for exemplary bravery in counter-terrorist missions. Apart from that, Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh Kumar and Lance Naik Dinesh Singh both soldiers of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) unit of India Army, and Sub-Inspector Shakeel Qazi of Jammu and Kashmir Police were killed while on duty.
Videos have now emerged of Hizbul Mujahideen Chief Syed Salahuddin claiming responsibility for the attack. Incidentally, Salahuddin is an US State Department designated Global terrorist.
Another video posted by ANI shows the terror chief holding a condolence meet for Hizbul terrorist Riyaz Naikoo who was killed by Indian forces in Kashmir's Awantipora district on May 6.
In both the videos, there can be seen a group of people sitting and listening to Salahuddin. The video appears to have been shot by an audience member.
Earlier, two terror organisations had tried to claim the violent encounter as their own. According to an IANS report from last week, even as the Lashkar-e-Taiba's (LeT) newly formed The Resistance Front (TRF) posted pictures of the two terrorists and took credit for the attack, the Hizbul Mujahideen contended that it was responsible.
Reportedly, one of the Hizbul terrorists made an audio call to his aide during the encounter with the Indian security forces in Handwara, claiming responsibility for the terror attack -- a clip of which had been accessed by the news agency. According to the same, one of the two terrorists had informed a Hizbul member about the encounter in which he and his partner were trapped with injuries in Handwara.
