Srinagar: Displaying a humanitarian gesture in the face of bullets, security forces today secured surrender of two newly-recruited terrorists during an encounter in Kashmir.
The local terrorists, affiliated with Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit, gave up their arms following appeals by their parents and the security forces, police and defence officials said.
Initially, the hiding terrorists fired at the security forces after a cordon was laid past midnight around a clutch of houses in Hadigam village of Kulgam district in South Kashmir and a search operation was launched to nab them, the officials said.
The cordon was laid at around 1 am, following a specific input about the presence of terrorists in Hadigam, said Srinagar-based defence spokesman.
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“Search of the suspected houses commenced at 2:30 AM, during which the terrorists opened fire onto the security forces from inside the house,” the spokesman said.
Meanwhile, it was found out that both the terrorists were “newly-recruited local youth and their families were desperate to get them back into the mainstream,” he added.
Considering this, the forces showed restraint and did not engage the terrorists despite being under fire from them, the spokesman said.
“Terrorists were kept contained in the house with utmost restraint displayed by Army and JKP,” he said.
During this time, the families of both the terrorists were brought to the encounter site so that they could appeal for their surrender.
“Repeated surrender appeals were made by the parents and security forces till morning,” the spokesman said, adding both the terrorists finally surrendered by laying down their arms in the morning.
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“During the #encounter, 02 local terrorists surrendered on the appeal of their parents & police. Incriminating materials, arms & ammunition recovered,” said a tweet by the police.
The Defence spokesman said these youth were brainwashed and tasked to carry out anti-national activities and killings at the behest of LeT and ISI.
“Security forces remain committed to encourage and facilitate return of misguided youth from the path of terrorism, ” the spokesman added.
IGP Kashmir Zone Vijay Kumar said in a tweet: “If every parent #appeal to their #terrorist sons to shun the path of #violence, whether they are trapped during live #encounters or have joined the #terrorism, many lives can be saved as in today’s encounter two lives were saved.”
