Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) suffered a major setback on Tuesday when security forces shot dead its chief operational commander Abdullah Uni in a gunfight in Sopore town of north Kashmir's Baramulla district.
"The top LeT commander Abdullah Uni is dead," Superintendent of Police, Sopore, Imtiyaz Hussain told the media.
Uni, a Pakistani resident, was active in Kashmir for nearly a decade and figured on top of the most wanted list of militants in the state as he was involved in several lethal attacks on security forces, political workers and civilians in north Kashmir.
He was also one of the accused in the murder of Jamiat-e-Ahlihadees chief Moulana Shoukat Ahmad Shah, who was killed in a bomb blast outside a Srinagar mosque in April this year.
Acting on a tip-off about the presence of some Lashkar militants in Baghat-e-Batpora locality in Sopore, about 55 km from here, a joint team of police and Rashtriya Rifles cordoned off the area around noon, official sources said.
When the security personnel were busy in house-to-house searches to flush out the militants, the latter opened fire on the search party triggering a gunbattle, they said.
The gunfight resulted in the killing of the militant who was later identified as Uni.
The top Lashkar commander, who was carrying a huge reward on his head, had managed to give slip to security forces at least eight times in the last two years after being cornered during search operations.