Noor Mohammad Tantray, a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist was gunned down in the Kashmir valley on Tuesday morning. The encounter took place in Samboora village in Pulwama district of South Kashmir. However, Tantray was only three feet tall and was reported to be behind the recent attacks in the Kashmir valley. He was the JeM’s ‘divisional commander’ in South Kashmir and was reported to have played an instrumental role in reviving the outfit in the valley. Tantray was a close aide of the 2001 Parliament attack case mastermind Ghazi Baba and was convicted in a case registered in 2003 in Delhi. He even served a sentence at Central Jail in Srinagar and was out on parole in 2015.
According to Director General of Police S P Vaid, the terrorist had gathered in the area. They were planning to lash out an attack on a convoy of security personnel in the Kashmir valley. There was input about the presence of two to three terrorists near the national highway who were “planning to attack convoy”, the DGP tweeted.
Terming the killing of 47-year-old Tantray as a “significant development”, the police said the terrorist was wanted in various terror incidents earlier this year, including a suicide attack at the BSF camp at Srinagar airport, and had become an irritant for the security forces.
“The divisional commander of JeM, Noor Mohammad Tantray alias Noor Trali, was killed in a gun battle with security forces in Samboora area of Pulwama,” the police said in a statement.
The body of Tantray, who was four feet two inches tall, was recovered along with one weapon this morning from the rubbles of the house where the terrorists were hiding. A crack team of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, acting on a specific input, had cordoned off a cluster of houses at Samboora which resulted in a fierce gunbattle leading to the elimination of the top JeM commander.
Consequently, he remained in Tral at South Kashmir and became a major overground worker of the JeM in the region, the police said. In July this year, after the Aripal encounter, in which three JeM terrorists were killed, Tantray went underground and soon became the key man of the terror outfit in coordinating and organising attacks at different places, he said.
He was one of the chief architects of the attack on a BSF camp near Srinagar airport in October, the spokesman said, adding that he was also wanted in connection with a number of terror attacks in south and central Kashmir. Tantray hailed from Tral area and his death is being seen as a blow to the terror group as he was the key man in reviving the JeM in south and central Kashmir.
He was buried at his village later on Tuesday afternoon.