SRINAGAR – Police in Indian Kashmir said Thursday they had shot dead the top commander of a Pakistan-based militant group blamed for a series of local attacks, including an assault on the state assembly in 2001. The chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM), Sajjad Afghani, and his bodyguard were killed in a gunfight along the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar, the biggest city in Kashmir, senior police chief S.M. Sahai told reporters. Afghani, who was also known among the militant ranks as “Qari Hamad”, was one of the region’s most wanted militants and active in north Kashmir, Sahai said, calling his killing “a major breakthrough” that had averted an attack.
