Ghazi Shahabuddin, operational commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed in Srinagar on Thursday afternoon, the Jammu and Kashmir police said.

Following a tip-off, a joint team of the Special Operations Group and Central Reserve Police Force launched a search operation at Ghanzkhud locality, the police said.

"During the operation the joint party came under fire, which was returned. In the gun battle, Shahabuddin was killed," the police said.

The killing of Shahabuddin, a close aide of Hizbul supreme commander Syed Salahuddin, is a huge setback to the outfit, which has lost six top commanders in the last six months, Sharma said. The previous chief operation commander, Gazi Nasiruddin, was killed along with the outfit's publicity chief Fayaz Din in an encounter this January.

A police spokesperson said a Kalashnikov rifle, four magazines, 60 rounds, one pistol, one magazine, five rounds, a satellite phone and Rs one lakh in cash were recovered from Shahabuddin.

Shahabuddin, whose real name was Abdul Rashid Shardar, was involved in several incidents, including the killing of seven civilians in a fruit market in Srinagar last September. He was also involved in the Lawaypora Bazar blast last December, in which 25 civilians were injured. Sharma said that 20 of the group's leaders had been killed in the past six months.

Meanwhile, the Hizbul Mujahideen claimed Shahabuddin was killed in a "fake encounter" and called for a strike in the Kashmir valley Friday. A group spokesperson told local news agency KNS that its commander was arrested at Sangrama in north Kashmir and later killed.

The group's command council has held an emergency meeting at its base camp and appointed Misbahuddin the new operations chief for Kashmir, he said.

With inputs from  PTI