New Delhi: A college graduate from a modest background who carried out a deadly attack on civilians in the Kashmir Valley just over a year after joining militancy. This is how security agencies are referring to Junaid Ahmad Bhat, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative killed in an encounter with security forces Tuesday on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Police said 24-year-old Bhat from Kulgam’s Qaimoh village was behind several terror attacks including the killing of six construction workers and a doctor near a tunnel construction site in Ganderbal district in October, days after an elected government came to power in Jammu and Kashmir following the outcome of the assembly elections.
Bhat went missing from his home on 1 July last year but his name surfaced as a suspect in the tunnel attack after he was captured on CCTV footage from a worker’s camp in Ganderbal district’s Gagangir area. The footage showed Bhat and another LeT operative entering the camp, which housed mostly migrant workers. Bhat was seen holding a rifle.
The 6.4-km Z-morh tunnel, part of a Rs 2,680-crore project, aims to provide all-weather connectivity between Gagangir and Sonmarg.
#OPDachigam : In the ongoing operation, one #terrorist is killed and has been identified as Junaid Ahmed Bhat ( LeT, Category A). The said terrorist was involved in civilians killing at Gagangir, Ganderbal and several other terror attacks. (1/2) https://t.co/zWXLOAtVb5
— Kashmir Zone Police (@KashmirPolice) December 3, 2024
Kashmir Inspector General of Police Vidhi Kumar Birdi told ThePrint Bhat was killed after J&K police and the Army launched a joint operation some 30 km from the district police headquarters in Srinagar based on intelligence inputs.
Army’s Chinar Corps, too, said in a statement that a joint operation was launched in and around Dachigam forest in Srinagar on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday.
“The operation resulted in the neutralisation of Junaid Ahmed Bhat. The cordon and search operation in the area which is rugged, hilly and forested is still ongoing,” Birdi told ThePrint.
J&K police sources further said the body of one militant had been recovered in the operation, but more militants who accompanied Bhat could be hiding in the forested area.
“The entire search operation has to conclude before an estimation of how many suspected militants were present with Bhat,” a police official said on condition of anonymity.
Missing report registered by J&K Police
Police officials aware of Bhat’s background told ThePrint he received his early education from government schools in the Qaimoh block of his home district where he was born in April 2000 in a family that had no “history of militancy”. He was the third son.
While one of his siblings worked as a labourer and the other as a truck driver, Bhat graduated from Government Degree College Kulgam. “He could speak fluent English which was not a common attribute for youngsters from the region,” a section police officer said.
His parents filed a missing person complaint after he didn’t return home on 1 July last year. Police opened a case file and two months later one police officer reported learning from a reliable source that Bhat had joined The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the banned LeT.
Believed to have been formed as a frontal organisation of the LeT in the wake of the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, TRF first appeared as an online outfit before bursting into headlines by taking responsibility for a spate of civilian killings in the UT.
“The subject remained busy with his domestic work. On 01/07/2023 the subject went from his home for labouring purposes towards Vishonalla and did not return back. The parents of the subject searched him at nears and dears but did not trace him,” read the police case record on Bhat which ThePrint has seen.
Based on the inputs by the field officer, Jammu and Kashmir Police booked Bhat under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and the Arms Act.
Police had registered two cases against Bhat: one for arms possession and joining LeT, and the other for the Ganderbal attack.
According to the New Delhi-based South Asia Terrorism Portal, murders of civilians in J&K doubled in 2024 compared to the previous year, and the final toll is likely to exceed those seen in the three years after Kashmir’s special status was revoked in 2019.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
And then for the longest time people were fed this narrative that these were exploited youth deprived of opportunities. Pattern of islamic terrorism across the world is replete with examples of well educated people taking the path of murder of innocents for their religious identity. Problem clearly lies at a place which the coward world of today fails to even utter.