Janjivan Bureau / Srinagar : PhD scholar Manan Bashir Wani turned-terrorist, Hizbul Mujahideen militants and one of associates were killed on Thursday during an encounter with security forces at Handwara in frontier district of north Kashmir, officials said.
The encounter broke out in the early hours at Satgund in Handwara following a specific intelligence about the presence of Wani, 27, along with two others, they said.
Giving details emerging from the encounter site, which ended, officials said the police and other security forces were fired upon by holed-up militants resulting in exchange of fire which continued till 11 am.
Police were also making repeated announcements on the public address system appealing to the militants to surrender, the officials said.
There was a lull in firing at around 9 am, prompting the police to initiate a search operation at the encounter site, but it had to be suspended after the firing resumed after 15 minutes, the officials said.
Wani, who was enrolled as a PhD scholar with the Aligarh Muslim University, joined militant ranks in January this year.
