Army recovers weapons stolen by deserter,kill 2 Lashkar men

A massive manhunt had been launched to track down the soldier but he managed to give the Army a slip. On Saturday morning,troops from 8 RR gunned down two militants — Nisar Ahmed Malik and Rafiq Gujjar — during an encounter in Doda district. A female accomplice is also believed to have been killed in the encounter.

While the two weapons stolen by Zafarullah were recovered,the deserter was not part of the group that exchanged fire with the Army,officers said. Search efforts are still on to trace him,they said.

Sources said Malik was Zafarullah’s handler and had got the weapons from the deserter last month. The encounter took place after the Doda based 8 RR,the same unit to which Zafarullah had been posted when he deserted the Army,received intelligence about militant movements.

The two rifles that were recovered from the site were found to match the missing weapons from the Army’s armoury. “The encounter took place in Bharat,Doda,and while Zafarullah was not part of the group,we managed to recover the weapons stolen by him,” an Army officer said.

Zafarullah’s desertion last month had raised concerns after it was revealed that he was the brother of a LeT militant Hanief Mohammad who has been hiding in PoK.

While Zafarullah was not the first Kashmiri soldier to desert from the Army,his was the only case in recent history where a soldier had fled with weapons to join the very militant organisation he had been fighting as part of the RR.