Security Forces (SFs) conducted Cordon and Search Operations (CASOs) in two areas of Shopian District in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) on January 30, reports Greater Kashmir. A Police official said that columns of Army, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Police surrounded a cluster of houses in Dalal Mohalla locality of Shopian town and carried out a door-to-door search operation. The official said that at around 5.30 pm, the SFs ring-fenced Kumdalan village and carried out a search operation. "The searches were conducted after the forces were tipped off about the presence of militants in the locality", said the official. He, however, said that both the operations were later called off as no militant was found hiding in these areas.
Kashmir zone Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vijay Kumar on January 30 termed the killing of Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Zahid Wani in an encounter as “one of the big successes”, adding that efforts were being made to bring down the active militant number to one hundred, reports Greater Kashmir. General officer Commanding (GoC) Prashant Srivastava said that the killing of Zahid "neutralises the threat of JeM in south Kashmir." IGP Vijay Kumar said: “As we have said earlier that it is for the first time that the number of terrorists has come down below 200. We tried our best to get it below 100 this year,” he said, adding that as far as the arms are concerned, there are various routes to sneak them in. “You have seen in Jammu region, there were 35 attempts in which drones were seized. Many arms came via drones, they come by road as well, sometimes through infiltration. So, there are a lot of ways. But we are making our network stronger by human intelligence and technical intelligence and we will seize and neutralise the threat.”