Hakoora gunfight: Identity of third slain militant still unknown

Srinagar: Police has buried the unidentified militant killed along with two locals in Anantnag gunfight on Monday night.
Three militants, including Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen district commander Eisa Fazili aka Abu Yahya al Istashadi and Syed Owais Shafi alias Abu Barra, were killed in a brief encounter at Hakoora, Anantnag.
However, uncertainty looms large over the identification of the third militants, with police claiming that nothing has been recovered from him to give a lead towards his identity.
Reports in some national newspaper had suspected the slain militant as Sultan al Hyderabadi alias Abu Zarr al Hindi.
A statement followed by the Tehreek-ul-Mujahideen identified the slain militant as Sabzar Ahmad Sofi of Anantnag, one of their associate.
The police investigation till now has not revealed anything that could establish that the militant was a local from Anantnag or from Hyderabad.
Police said that an investigation regarding tracing of the whereabouts of the third militant was on.
“He has been buried and currently the process to trace his identity is going on,” Director General of Police, SP Vaid, told The Kashmir Monitor.
Inspector General of Police, SP Pani, also said that he was in touch with the S P concerned to ascertain the identity of the militant.
“As far as I know, his identity has not been known yet. There are different ways to ascertain identity and we are using those channels to gather information about the militant,” he said.
So far, there has not been any statement from other militant outfit to reveal the identity of the slain militant.
Sources in police said this has been one of the rarest cases when the identification of the militant has not been traced for so long.
“Usually police gets to know the identification in such cases within 24 hours. But then there has not been any confirmation at the local level as well. The police is trying to know about the third militant,” they said.
Police has claimed that AK 47 rifles, pistols, and hand grenades were recovered from the militants at the site of encounter
While the police maintained that the identity of the third militant was being ascertained, unverified claims on the social media also identified him as a resident of Hyderabad.