Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir police on Tuesday said that a top Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) commander was among three militants killed in a fierce gunbattle that took place in southern Kulgam district on Monday night.

The police also claimed that the slain men were involved in the July 10 attack in Anantnag district in which eight Amarnath pilgrims were killed and 19 others injured.

J&K’s director-general of police Shesh Paul Vaid identified the slain militants as LeT “divisional commander” Furqan, a Pakistan national, and his accomplices Abu Muawiyah (also a Pakistani) and Yawar Bashir, a resident of Kulgam’s Hablish village. A fourth militant who had escaped during the encounter was arrested from a maternity hospital in Anantnag on Tuesday.

“Furkan, a Pakistani terrorist who took over as divisional commander of LeT after the elimination of Ismail, was killed in encounter at Qazigund along with another Pakistani terrorist Abu Mavia. Great success for security forces,” the police chief tweeted.

The police had on September 14 said that LeT’s Abu Ismail, the “mastermind” of the attack on Amarnath pilgrims, was killed in a fire fight with the forces in Srinagar’s Nowgam area earlier during that day.

The fighting in Bonigam area near Qazigund had begun late Monday afternoon after the group of four LeT militants ran into a private house in the village after targeting an Army convoy moving along the Srinagar-Jammu highway.