Two Hizbul militants surrender in Jammu Kashmir

Doda (Jammu-Kashmir), March 4 (ANI): Two members of Hizbul Mujahideen laid down their arms on Thursday in the Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district.

The two men surrendered along with a large cache of weapons and ammunition to Kuldeep Khoda, the Director General of Police in Jammu and Kashmir.

The arms laid down by the militants included a universal machine gun, an AK-47 rifle, a grenade launcher, 550 rounds of AK rifle, six AK magazines, seven RPG rounds, 50 detonators and one M-16 grenade.

Both the militants belonged to Darosh Dessa village of Doda district.

Sher Mohammad, also known as Saifullah, had been fighting for the group for the last two years, he said that he decided to surrender after being fed up with militancy.

"I started to see there was no end to this fighting when I became a militant. The jihad they (Hizbul Mujahideen) are preaching is not happening here. I thought to myself, there is no end so I decided to surrender," said Mohammed.

Abdul Latif, who used the alias Hamza, had been a district commander for the militant group for more than a decade.

After surrendering his weapons, he said that although most of the militants he has been fighting alongside are now dead, there were still some left in the area.

"All the militants who I have fought alongside over the years have been killed. Now there are only a few who are still alive........., one is called Shaheen and the other is Imtiaz. They are still alive and well in this area," said Latif.

Khoda hailed the militants' decision to surrender and said if others did the same, he would ensure they would receive assistance in order to lead a life in mainstream society.

"We hope that after the surrender of these militants, others who have chosen the path of violence will follow suit and come back into mainstream society. We will help them and rehabilitate them so that they can move towards a better path and work for the welfare of people rather than against them. We are keeping the two men who surrendered today with us. Our message to the militants still operating in the area is that they should come back into mainstream society for which we will give as much help as needed," said Khoda.

Hizbul-Mujahideen has been the most active militant group in Kashmir for almost two decades and wants Kashmir to become a part of Muslim Pakistan. Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan both claim the region in full but rule it in part. (ANI)