Top Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Abdullah Ooni,one of the Valleys most wanted militants with a bounty of Rs 20 lakh on his head,was killed in an encounter in Sopore today,police said. Ooni,27,was the face of the Lashkar in Kashmir,and had been instrumental in galvanising cadres of the militant organisation in Sopore town. He was an IED expert,officials said,and a master of disguise who had escaped the police dragnet at least a dozen times over the past few years. Ooni was killed after the police received specific information that he was hiding in the Batpora Baghat locality, Inspector General of Police,Kashmir Range,S M Sahai,said. The killing,Sahai said,is the second major setback suffered by the Lashkar following the killing of its five commanders in Lolab earlier. Ooni,who belonged to Mansehra in Pakistan,crossed into the Valley at the time of the 2005 earthquake,and last year married a Sopore girl called Tabassum. A few months ago,she delivered a baby girl at a government hospital in Srinagar. Tabassum identified her husbands body soon after he was killed today,police said. We got the body identified by his wife. The body also matched pictures of Ooni that police and other security agencies had, said a senior officer who was part of the operation. Police said they had received a tip-off that Ooni had come to meet his wife in Sopores Batapora Baghat locality last night. He was killed by police and Army assault teams inside an abandoned house nearby after an encounter this afternoon,they said. Sopore superintendent of police Imtiyaz Hussain Mir told The Indian Express that his men had been keeping a close tab on Oonis movements for a month now. We launched eight operations to nab or kill him over the last week. Todays operation was the ninth one, Mir said. We would generally conduct late-night operations or try to encircle him at the crack of dawn. This time,we knew that he had come to meet his wife and was there for the night,but we changed our strategy and cordoned off the house only at 9 am. Ooni jumped out of a window and took refuge in an abandoned house nearby. We followed. He threw a grenade and then opened fire, Mir said. Ooni,the police said,was finally killed at 1 pm. He was alone, Mir said. I have received splinter injuries on my face,but all our men are safe. The polices initial information that Ooni,the Lashkars North Kashmir chief,would be accompanied by two other top Lashkar commanders,Muzaffar alias Molvi and Akash Bader,turned out to be incorrect. A pistol was found on Ooni. After entering Kashmir in the Kupwara sector,Ooni initially operated in the Lolab Valley. In 2008,following instructions of his senior commanders,he moved to Sopore. He kept shifting bases between Sopore town,Zanigeer and Kupwara. Police investigations linked Ooni to the recent assassination of Jamiat Ahle Hadees chief Molvi Showkat. He was also involved in the booby-trap attack on Sopore police station in July,in which a policeman was killed and nine others were injured. Police said he was also involved in the killing of the teenage sisters Akthara and Arifa in February this year. Despite heavy police deployment,protests broke out in Sopore town after the encounter. Youths hurled stones at the police and paramilitary forces.
