Pahalgam attack aftermath: Houses of three suspected terrorists razed in south Kashmir
Srinagar (PTI): The houses of three suspected terrorists have been razed by authorities in the Kashmir Valley. It is seen as a crackdown on terrorism days after the dastardly Pahalgam attack in which 26 people were killed.
Officials on Saturday said that houses of the alleged terrorists were demolished in Pulwama, Shopian and Kulgam districts of south Kashmir on Friday night.
Earlier, the houses of two Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, including that of the Pahalgam terror attack's prime suspect, were destroyed when explosives believed to be stored there went off during the intervening night of Thursday and Friday.
On Friday night, the house of Ahsan ul Haq Sheikh in the Muran area of Pulwama district was torn down, officials said, adding that he was "trained in Pakistan" in 2018 and had recently "infiltrated" into the Valley.
In a similar action in Chotipora of the Shopian district, the house of an active top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Shahid Ahmad Kuttay was razed, they said. Kuttay, active for the past three to four years, has been involved in many anti-national activities, the officials claimed.
At the Matalhama area of the Kulgam district, the residence of Zakir Ahmad Ganie, who has been active since 2023 and was under surveillance for his alleged involvement in multiple terror-related activities, was also pulled down during the night, they said.
With this, five residences of alleged terrorists have been razed.
On Friday, the houses of Aadil Hussain Thokar, accused of helping in the execution of the Pahalgam bloodbath, and Asif Sheikh, also believed to be involved in the attack, were being searched by security forces when an explosion damaged the structures in Bijbehara and Tral.
Explosives were supposedly found on the premises during the search operation, prompting the security forces to evacuate the occupants of the houses as well as neighbours to safety before they went off.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
