"They are saying that the president disposed of Afzal's mercy petition five days ago, on February 3. But even the petitioners didn't know that his mercy plea had been rejected," says Supreme Court advocate Kamini Jaiswal in an interview
'Special police told me that if I speak according to their wishes they will not harm my family and also gave me false assurance that they will make my case weak so that after sometime I will get released...'
Arms and ammunition and other incriminating material were recovered from the site of the encounter.
Two Jaish-e-Mohammad militants were killed in a daylong fierce gunfight with security forces on the outskirts of summer capital Srinagar on Thursday, reports Mukhtar Ahmad.
Sarpanches and panches elected in elections last year in Kashmir valley have become soft targets for militants who have asked them to resign from their posts or face the consequences.
The demand for action by Pakistan was made through a joint statement issued after the 2+2 ministerial attended by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.
The slain security force personnel were identified as Sepoy Ajay Kumar and Constable Lateef Gujri.
Indian agencies warn that despite being told to maintain a low profile by the ISI, Maulana Masood Azhar could still spin out of control and use the hanging of Afzal Guru as a reason to strike.
Pakistan on Wednesday arrested Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar, his brother and "several individuals" belonging to his dreaded outfit, which is suspected to have engineered the Pathankot terror attack, and sealed its offices after India demanded action, linking it to the fate of Foreign Secretary-level talks.
Afzal Guru, who was convicted for the 2001 Parliament attack case and sentenced to death, was hanged in Tihar Jail at 8 am on Saturday. His mercy petition was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee earlier this week.
India has slammed Pakistan for stating that it had no role in the Pulwama attack carried out by Pakistan-based terror group JeM, saying Islamabad could not claim that it was unaware of the presence of terror groups on its soil as the links of such outfits to the country were there for everyone to see.
Two militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit were killed in a fierce encounter in south Kashmir late on Thursday night, according to police.
Experts in Delhi expressed doubt over the authenticity of the claim as the Pathankot attack is widely believed to be the handiwork of Pakistan-backed Jaish-e-Mohammad terror outfit which is not part of UJC.
This was for the second time in the past six years that Hussain, who also worked for an intelligence unit of the Pakistani army, was arrested while trying to infiltrate into this side from across the border.
The accused, Faiz Rasheed, was 19 and a college student at the time of the crime and has been in custody for three-and-a-half years.
US special forces came away with hard drives, DVDs and a trove of documents from the Abbottabad safe house of Osama bin Laden which might tip American intelligence to Al Qaeda's operational plan and lead the manhunt to his presumed successor Ayman al Zawahiri.
"These are just aliases given to terrorists operating in Jammu and Kashmir by their outfits. Abu Talha, Abu Owias, Sajad Afghani etc are the code names given to the terrorists by their outfits. The actual names of these terrorists are, in fact, never known," a senior police officer said.
In a major success, security forces gunned down Sajad Afghani, the chief commander of the frontline Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit, along with his guard on the shores of the Dal Lake in Srinagar on Thursday afternoon.
In the wake of China blocking United Nations Security Council's sanctions against Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, India has provided detailed information to it about his involvement in terror activities, and hopes Beijing would support the move. The issue figured during the talks between special representatives -- National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo in New Delhi last Friday and Saturday.
C D Sahay, former chief of the Research and Analysis Wing, spoke of the events that led up to the Parliament attack.
Two terrorists of the Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit were gunned down by the security forces in a day-long gunfight in the south Kashmir's Shangarpora village, 37 kms from summer capital Srinagar in Pulwama district.
The defence minister said she will definitely come out with a solution.
Militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Umar Khatab was killed and an army jawan wounded in a fierce gun-battle in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district on Sunday. Khatab was killed in a gunfight with security forces in Bhatti-Dar area at Mendhar early on Sunday morning, said Brigadier General Staff (16 Coprs) S Dua. Acting on specific information that some militants were hiding in Bhatti-Dar area, Rashtriya Rifles troops and the police launched a search-and-cordon operation.
Corps Commander Lt Gen K J S Dhillon of the Chinar Corps also requested mothers of Kashmiri militants to persuade their sons to surrender.
Sajad Afghani, Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief 'commander' for Kashmir who was killed during an encounter with security forces in Srinagar last week, belonged to Punjab province of Pakistan. Sajad Afghani is a common name for Kashmiri militants; it has become more of a moniker that is bestowed on the person who is serving as the commander of the insurgent outfit.The first Sajad Afghani belonged to Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan.
US District Judge William Duffey Jr of federal court in Atlanta sentenced Pakistan-origin Syed Haris Ahmed of Atlanta and Bangladesh-American Ehsanul Islam Sadequee of Roswell, Georgia, following their convictions earlier this year in separate but related criminal trials.
Pakistan has not yet informed India whether it has taken any action taken against JeM, believed to be responsible for the terror attack on Pathankot airbase.
A day after Pakistan announced crackdown on Jaish-e-Mohammad, Home Ministry officials on Thursday said there is no information on whether any criminal case was registered against the outfit believed to be responsible for the Pathankot attack.
Times Square terror bombing plot suspect Faisal Shahzad was a childhood friend of one of the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai massacre, a media report said, as US investigators traced his links to another Pakistani militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad.
The clarification follows a hard-hitting statement by the sitting ruling National Conference MP Sharief-ud-Din Shariq that 'the three had been murdered in cold blood'.
Aijaz Ahmad, presently based in Afghanistan, is one of the chief recruiters of Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir.
United Nations proscribed terrorist Lakhvi, 61, who was on bail since 2015 in the Mumbai attack case, was arrested by the Counter-Terrorism Department of Punjab province on Saturday.
Terrorists fired indiscriminately on a police party near Nowgam bypass Friday morning, a police official said, adding three policemen were injured in the attack, two of them later succumbed. They said the terrorists have been identified and will be neutralised soon.
The anti-terror operation is still on.
A gunbattle broke out between militants and security forces in Baramulla district of North Kashmir on Wednesday morning.
Panzoo alias Fayaz Ahmad Thokar alias Hanzulla Bai was a "co-conspirator" of the Pulwama terror attack in which 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed by a terrorist who used a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device to trigger the deadly blast.
Tahir Ali profiles the Amjad Farooqi and Ilyas Kashmiri groups, responsible for the recent surge of terrorism in Pakistan.
The United States has asked Pakistan to widen its ongoing crackdown on banned terrorist outfits to those linked with subversive activities in India, including Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, while assuring that it would work with New Delhi to defuse the tension generated by the Mumbai terror attacks.
Two Pakistani militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) outfit were killed in an encounter with security forces in Kupwara district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, a police spokesman said.
India on Thursday rubbished Pakistan's contention that it was not provided sufficient evidence about involvement of Jamaat-ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed in Mumbai attacks, even as it is seeking details about Islamabad's claim about banning outfits like JuD and Jaish-e-Mohammad.
