SRINAGAR:A Kashmiri youth, Manan Bashir Wani, who quit his Ph.D programme at Aligarh Muslim University earlier this year to join the terror group Hizbul Mujahedeen, was killed along with one of his aides, in a gunbattle in Kupwara district of north Kashmir on Thursday.Police said the gunfight broke out early on Thursday after a joint team of its Special Operations Group (SOG) and Army’s 30 Rashtriya Rifles cordoned off Shatgund Balla area in Handwara of Kupwara district.Both the terrorists, Manan Bashir Wani and Ashiq Hussain Zargar, were killed in the operation, a police officer said. Both were natives of Kupwara district.Manan, 26, was a PhD scholar in geology at AMU and came from a well-off family of Tekipora in Lolab. His father, Bashir Ahmad is a lecturer and his brother, Mubashir Ahmad, a junior engineer. He described himself on a portal, which is now defunct, as an AMU research scholar and a “student activist” interested in “geopolitics and Islamic revivalist movements”.Manan had taken official leave from the university in January and instead of going home he joined Hizbul, which was confirmed when his picture with a rifle went viral on social media on January 5. He was the first Kashmiri PhD student at AMU to join a terror group.Shocked by the picture, Manan’s parents sent out an appeal, pleading him to return home. Manan’s father had told the media at the time that his son had taken the decision to join militancy without his knowledge.On Thursday, soon after the news about his death spread, violent clashes erupted in Kupwara and Handwara. The authorities immediately closed all the educational institutions in north and south Kashmir and snapped internet services in parts of Handwara and Kupwara. Former CM Mehbooba Mufti termed Manan’s killing as “loss” on Twitter. “Today a PhD scholar chose death over life.... His death is entirely our loss as we are losing young educated boys every day,” she tweeted.

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