In what can be viewed as a fortuitous turn of events for the Valley’s security forces, two militant commanders were killed by a black bear in their cave hideout high up in the Himalayan Pir Panjal range. The J-K police said that the area is a natural habitat of the Himalayan black bear and that there have been several attacks on humans in the area over the past few weeks.

Defence spokesman Lt Col J S Brar said that the bodies of the two militants were recovered from Dandaloo Nar forests in the upper reaches of Pir Panjal after troops of 9 Rashtriya Rifles received inputs about their hideout.

“The two bodies were recovered from a cave hideout along with two AK-47 rifles, six magazines and 130 rounds of ammunition,” Brar said. “The injury marks on the bodies suggested that a bear attacked and killed them. We handed over the bodies to the police.” Postmortems on the bodies have since been performed.

Inspector General of Police, Kashmir range, Farooq Ahmed said that the face of one militant was mutilated while the other had claw injuries. “We suspect that one militant who was injured in the bear attack escaped from the hideout,” Ahmed said. “We have launched a search for him”.

Police sources say the militants had entered the Valley from Jammu.

The two dead militants have been identified as Bashir Zarar alias Saifullah, who was the Hizbul Mujahideen’s district commander for Pir Panjal range, and HM’s tehsil commander Mohammad Amin alias Kaiser of Gulabgadh, Reasi.

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