Last Friday, Jammu and Kashmir Police announced a reward of Rs 15 lakh for information leading to the arrest of Mohammad Lateef Bhat, and put up posters with his photograph across South Kashmir and Srinagar. Bhat is accused of killing a policeman and two non-local workers, in two separate attacks in South Kashmir last month – the first militant hits in the Valley since the Pahalgam attack in July last year.
More importantly, the 22-year-old, as per J&K Police records, is the only surviving local militant now active in the Valley.
A resident of Khrewan Chader village of South Kashmir’s Kulgam, Bhat is said to have joined militant ranks only last year. Allegedly associated with the Lashkar-e-Toiba, he went under the radar till he was captured on a surveillance camera in South Kashmir’s Shopian on the night of July 2, along with an associate, Zakir Ahmad Ganai.
In a joint police and Army operation not long after, Ganai was killed. But Bhat managed to evade capture.
The two latest attacks attributed to Bhat include the killing of Ashiq Hussain, a head constable with the Special Operations Group, in a crowded market in Anantnag on July 22, and the shooting of two non-local workers at a brick kiln in Kilam village of Kulgam nine days later.
A student of Government Higher Secondary School in Ashmuji, Kulgam, Bhat joined Government Degree College in Kulgam for a Bachelor’s degree but didn’t finish the course. For a short period after that, Bhat worked as a glazier.
Then, in early 2025, he left home and went underground. His inspiration in joining the militant ranks was Ganai, who was with the Lashkar. In November 2025, an outfit called the Kashmir Revolutionary Army (KRA) formally announced he had joined them.
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Police believe the KRA too is a shadow name of the Lashkar, the same as The Resistance Front (TRF), which has been taking credit for militant attacks in the Valley recently, including last month’s.
There has been a spurt of such little-known outfits, including People Against Fascists Forces (PAFF) and Kashmir Fighters, since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. Security forces believe they are all fronting for the Lashkar or Jaish-e-Mohammed, which have come under increasing pressure, as well as filling up the space created by the killing of top Hizbul Mujahideen commanders.
Of the outfits, the PAFF is largely active in the Jammu region. The TRF is the most well-known, having emerged just months into the scrapping of J&K’s special status and its bifurcation into two Union Territories in August 2019.
The first attack for which the TRF claimed credit was the October 2019 grenade explosion at a street market in Srinagar, in which five vendors were injured. Security agencies initially dismissed the claim, describing the blast as an “act of miscreants” aimed at prolonging the shutdown that followed the August 2019 changes.
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The first signs that the TRF was emerging as a significant and strong militant group came when the J&K Police busted a network of overground workers in North Kashmir’s Sopore – the town had once been a strong base of the Lashkar in the Valley – and Kupwara. The arrested workers reportedly revealed that they were “recruiting youths for the new outfit”.
Barely two weeks later, Keran witnessed its first major gunfight in several years. In a fierce hand-to-hand gun battle, five alleged TRF militants were killed, while an entire team of the Army’s Special Forces, comprising five commandos from its elite Para unit, lost their lives.
A week later, the TRF claimed responsibility for the attack on a paramilitary vehicle in Sopore, in which three CRPF personnel were killed and two injured. The outfit also claimed through Telegram channels that two militants killed in Handwara, in an operation in which senior Army officers (a Colonel and a Major) and a police officer were killed, were affiliated to it.
By mid-2020, the security agencies had begun treating the TRF as a significant militant outfit.
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Noting that Pakistan was under pressure after being put on the Financial Action Task Force grey list, a senior police officer said: “It had to do something to keep its constituency in Kashmir happy… So they decided to forge a new militant outfit that would appear secular and indigenous. They deliberately chose words like ‘Resistance’ and ‘Fascism’, to have global currency and acceptance.”
An officer said that, like the Lashkar, “(TRF) identified young men in the Valley and sent them across the Wagah border on valid visas… They were trained there… There are several such men whose whereabouts we are still unsure of, whether they remain in Pakistan or have returned and are operating here.”
In January 2023, the Union Home Ministry designated the TRF a “terrorist organisation” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. The government said it was engaged in “terror propaganda, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration and smuggling of weapons and narcotics” from Pakistan.
Since Ganai’s killing, Bhat is believed to be trying to keep the TRF alive by activating its sleeper cells. “The attacks can’t be the work of a lone wolf,” a police officer said, pointing out that Bhat must have had “logistical support”, “which suggests he has a well-organised network of overground workers, even if small”.
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Another police officer said that while Bhat may be the only local active militant in records, the actual number could be higher. “Over the years, militancy has become increasingly insulated. As both human and technical intelligence have dried up, little information is coming about the groups’ organisational structure, strength and plans,” he said.
Besides, while Bhat may be the only local militant currently in police records, around 30 Pakistani nationals and Lashkar operatives are said to be in the Valley, hiding out in its dense mountainous forests.
For now, though, police attention is focused on Lateef Bhat.