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A militant siege of Entrepreneurship Development Institute in Pulwama district occurred on 20 February 2016 in Kashmir. [1] It was part of the 2016 Kashmir unrest.
Prior to this incident militants had attacked a Central Reserve Police convoy travelling on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway, resulting in three police deaths. In a gunfight later, one civilian was killed in gunfire between police and militants, and over a dozen were injured, including police. [2]
After the attack on convoy, militants besieged the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India. The government personnel were immediately rescued but one employee, a gardener, was killed in the initial gunfight. [1] The fight lasted 48 hours, in which, it was found, three militants were cleverly changing their position in the building, engaging security forces in fierce battle. A special team of Indian forces finally cleared each floor of the building and searched every room for militants, then neutralized all three. [3]
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The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Afghanistan.
On 20 February 2016, 4 Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists armed with AK-47 Assault rifles, UBGL, hand grenades, and explosives attacked a CRPF convoy on the main road linking Srinagar to Jammu, killing two police men and a civilian. The militants then took refuge in the government-run multi-story "Entrepreneurship Development Institute" in Pampore. Units of the Indian Army and Central Reserve Police Force cordoned off the building and launched a joint operation to evacuate civilians from the building. For Security forces, their main focus was to evacuate civilians to safety. Army and CRPF launched a joint operation with armored vehicles to evacuate 120 civilians from the building. The militants responded with automatic gunfire and hand grenades. During the ensuing battle, three soldiers from Indian Army lost their lives. Captain Pawan Kumar from 10 Para Special Forces, Captain Tushar Mahajan & Lance Naik Om Prakash from 9 Para Special Forces lost their life. Capt. Pawan Kumar from Army's 10 Para Special Forces unit lost his life on the first day during the firefight, a terrorist was also killed in the firefight. After the firefight part of the EDI building caught on fire.
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Sabzar Ahmed Bhat was a Kashmiri militant, who was the area commander of the militant organisation Hizbul Mujahideen. He was killed in an encounter by the police on 26 May 2017 at Tral.
Abu Dujana was an Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind militant, former Lashkar-e-Taiba commander and Pakistani national who was killed in a joint anti-militant operation in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir. Dujana was Lashkar-e-Taiba's chief commander for the Kashmir Valley. He was listed among the most-wanted in Jammu and Kashmir for several attacks on security forces. He was an A+++ category militant and carried a reward of ₹1,500,000 (US$18,000) on his head.
Indian Army operations in Jammu and Kashmir include security operations such as Operation Rakshak, which began in 1990, Operation Sarp Vinash in 2003 and Operation Randori Behak in 2020. Other operations include humanitarian missions such as Operation Megh Rahat and operations with a social aim such as Operation Goodwill and Operation Calm Down. The Indian Army works in tandem with the other arms of the Indian Armed Forces and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir such as during Mission Sahayata or joint operations.
Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind is an al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist jihadist militant group active in Kashmir. The group's stated objective is to create Kashmir as an independent Islamic state under Sharia law and to fight jihad against Indian administration of Jammu and Kashmir.
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The People's Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) is a militant terrorist organization actively engaged in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, an ongoing armed conflict between Kashmiri separatist militants and Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir. PAFF was established in 2020 by Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Pakistan-based Jihadist groups.
The Resistance Front (TRF) is a militant organisation actively engaged in Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, and designated as a terrorist organisation in India. Indian government and other experts believe that the organisation was founded by and is an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Jihadist terrorist group. The group is responsible for attacks on and killings of civilians, including those belonging to religious minority communities such as Kashmiri Hindus government employees, labourers and business owners, local politicians, and tourists, as well as for several attacks on Indian security forces including local policemen.