New Delhi: Security forces got Abu Ismail’s number – or, to be precise, they tracked the cellphone number of the elusive Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist’s aide and gunned down both of them in Jammu and Kashmir’s Nowgam sector on Thursday.

By killing the LeT commander, security personnel avenged the victims of the July 10 attack on Amarnath pilgrims of which he was allegedly the mastermind. Seven people died and about 20 were injured in the terror strike on a bus in the Valley.

By killing the LeT commander, security personnel avenged the victims of the July 10 attack on Amarnath pilgrims of which he was allegedly the mastermind. Seven people died and about 20 were injured in the terror strike on a bus in the Valley.

Ismail, who was a resident of the state of Punjab in Pakistan, was an A++ category terrorist who had sneaked into India in 2016 and had taken over the command of Lashkar operations in South Kashmir area from Abu Dujana, who was eliminated by security forces in August.

“Main accused of the Amarnath Yatra attack Abu Ismail along with his associate Abu Kasim have been eliminated in Nowgam,” Jammu and Kashmir police chief SP Vaid announced.

Army sources said the intelligence input for the action was provided by the technical cell of the J&K police, which had been tracking the mobile phone of Ismail’s accomplice and were following his movements closely since morning.

“After confirming the input from sources on ground, the joint security team surrounded a particular house in Nowgam where Ismail was hiding with Kasim. Caught by surprise mainly due to the speed with which the cordon was done, they also started retaliating,” they said.

“The operation ended in less than 30 minutes without causing any injury to any of the troops here,” the sources said.

The exercise was carried out jointly by state police’s special operations group, Army’s 50, Rashtriya Rifles (Kumaon) and the CRPF.

J&K police’s technical cell has been instrumental in the killing of many top names of Kashmiri terrorists, including Bashir Lashkari, Abu Dujana, Sabzar Ahmed Bhat and Burhan Wani in the last couple of years.

Senior Army sources said Ismail’s death is a great success for security forces as he was involved in a large number of bank robberies, after demonetisation, to provide support to the terrorist infrastructure hit badly by cash crunch and attacking military Sources said the command of Lashkar was handed over to Ismail by the Pakistani ISI and Lashkar co-founder Hafiz Saeed as previous commander Dujana had fallen in love with a Kashmiri girl and was found not focused enough by the leadership.

Seen as an aggressive terrorist by observers, Ismail always made it a point to not come in direct contact with Kashmiris to avoid getting caught and used local terrorists in his group of men to contact their on-ground workers (OGWs).

His group included 8 to 9 men comprising of local and foreign terrorists. They were quite active on the national highway connecting Srinagar with South Kashmir.Army’s Victor Force of the Rashtriya Rifles which looks after the South Kashmir area said the elimination of Ismail was important as it will further create a vacuum in the LeT leadership.