Unidentified gunmen today barged into a Jammu and Kashmir Bank Branch in Noorpora village of Tral in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district and decamped with one lakh rupees cash amount.
Sources said that the gunmen, who were three in number, barged into Noorpora Branch of J&K Bank and looted nearly Rs. 1 lakh Monday afternoon. They said that gunmen also fired in air and damaged some equipment of the bank before fleeing.
Soon after the incident, government forces including army and SOG arrived on the spot and launched searches besides questioning eyewitnesses. A senior police officer while confirming the incident said that the gunmen include Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind chief Zakir Musa and his two associates.
He claimed that the ‘militants’ were chased away by locals with stones and forced to retreat. “Militants were made to retreat by locals when they came to loot public money from the bank in Noorpora area of Tral township in Pulwama district,” the police official claimed.
“The locals who were present near the Noorpora branch of J&K Bank pushed back the militants with stones. The militants retreated from the bank while firing few aerial gunshots and meanwhile managed to take around 1 lac currency with them. Manhunt has been launched in the area to nab the militants,” the police official added.
Noorpora is the native village of engineering dropout-turned militant Zakir Musa. So far, the Zakir’s group has neither confirmed their involvement in the heist nor denied. This is for the first time since the formation of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind that police have blamed it for bank loot. Earlier, police used to blame Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideeen outfits for bank heists in south Kashmir and in central Kashmir. These outfits have denied their involvement multiple times.