Thanking the Army for imparting him a 90-day carpentry training, a relative of the longest surviving Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander Mohammad Amin in Kishtwar district of J&K appealed him to surrender and return to the national mainstream.
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Amin alias “Jehangir Saroori”, a resident of Kishtwar, has joined the militant ranks in the early 1990s and has been evading his arrest for over the past three decades.
“I am thankful to the Army which came to the rescue of our family and provided me with a 90-day course in carpentry to earn a living,” Junaid, son of Amin's elder brother Kareem, told reporters after the successful completion of the certificate course.
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He said the Army, despite knowing the fact that his uncle is a militant, came to their house and enrolled him for the course.
'Grateful to the Army'
“My appeal to him (uncle) is that he should surrender and return home. Nobody ever came to help us and we are grateful to the Army which is always there to help us,” he said.
Declared terrorism-free over a decade ago, the communally sensitive Kishtwar was rocked by a series of terror incidents in 2018 and 2019 and Amin, the longest surviving Hizbul Mujahideen commander, was believed to be the brain behind the revival of terrorism in the district.
Terrorists had shot dead senior BJP leader Anil Parihar and his brother Ajit Parihar in Kishtwar town on November 1, 2018 while RSS functionary Chanderkant Sharma and his PSO were assassinated in a separate attack at a hospital on April 9, 2019.
The ultras had also struck on two more occasions in 2019 and decamped with service rifles of two policemen.
The first major success against the terrorists operating in the district, however, was registered on September 28, 2019 when security forces killed three ultras including Osama Bin Javed, wanted in connection with the targeted killings, in an encounter in nearby Ramban district.
They were killed while fleeing an offensive which saw nearly two dozen members and overground workers of the outfit arrested and several of their hideouts busted.
Earlier in October 2019, police had announced a bounty of ₹30 lakhs on the head of Amin and two others.
“The youth should stay away from the wrong path of militancy and drugs,” Junaid said.
