In what’s being considered a major success for security forces in Jammu and Kashmir, a top self-styled commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) outfit was among five terrorists killed in two separate overnight encounters in Pulwama and Budgam districts of the valley, officials said on Sunday. The JeM chief Zahid Wani was active since 2017 and was involved in several killings and recruitment of youth into terrorist ranks.These modules were directly controlled from across with the support of Sakargargh and Kotli camps, under the direct supervision of Qari Zarar and Mulana Rouf Azhar, who is the brother of Massod Azhar.Wani, originally a staunch over ground worker of the Tehrik-ul-Mujahideen (TuM) outfit, was arrested in 2016 in Srinagar in connection with harbouring of two TuM terrorists namely Danish and Mugeez, both belonging to Srinagar’s Parimpora.He had arranged camouflage gear for those two terrorists back then. Wani was also an extreme radical and a hard core Jihadi.Speaking to reporters at a joint press conference in Pulwama, IGP Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, and GoC of the army’s Victor Force, Major General Prashant Srivastava, said the gunfights, which broke out on Saturday, took place in Pulwama and Budgam districts of the Kashmir valley after the security forces received specific inputs about the presence of terrorists.While four JeM terrorists were killed in the encounter in Naira area of Pulwama, in south Kashmir, one ultra of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was killed in Chrar-i-Sharief area of the central Kashmir’s Budgam district. Zahid Wani was a top commander of the Jaish. His brother was involved in the Ban Plaza attack (in Jammu) and is in jail.After the killing of Sameer Dar, he became the district commander of JeM. In fact, he was the Jaish chief of the whole valley. It was a good operation and I want to congratulate the security forces, Kumar told reporters.The IGP said so far this month, there have been 11 encounters in which 21 terrorists, including eight Pakistanis, have been killed. Complimenting the entire team of the security forces for carrying out the operation under the most challenging circumstances, the GoC Victor Force said the Pulwama operation was not an isolated operation, but a part of the series of human intelligence-based operations that have been undertaken in the jurisdiction of the Army’s 15 Corps in the past few months. He said Wani was one of the masterminds of various IED attacks which have taken place since 2017.With this success, we have taken a very important step in neutralising the threat of JeM in this area. With the neutralising of Wani, we have eliminated one of the masterminds of various IED attacks that have taken place over the years since 2017, Maj Gen Srivastava said.Wani was also involved in the extensive recruitment of young boys into militancy, he said. He (Wani) misled them to their untimely death and caused a lot of anguish to the families and the people who are residing in this area. His elimination will provide a lot of relief to the residents of the district and indeed in the entire J-K, the GoC Victor Force said.Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.