SRINAGAR: The chiefs of the four main terrorist outfits - Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Muhammed, Hizbul Mujahideen and Ansar Ghazwat-ul Hind - have been killed in counterterror operations over the last four months, IGP (Kashmir) Vijay Kumar said on Sunday.

"I congratulate the security forces, as it is for the first time in history that the four chiefs of main terrorist outfits - Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen Ansar Ghazwat-ul Hind have been killed in four months. Elimination of leadership causes damage to the outfit," Kumar said in a press conference here.

"In the last two days, two successful operations were conducted. There was no collateral damage. In an operation in Kulgam on Saturday, two

terrorists were killed while the other two managed to escape. One of the terrorists is from Pakistan's Punjab province. He is active in Kulgam for the last three years. He is a shooter and IED expert. An AK-47 has been recovered from his possession along with pistol and explosives," he said.

He said that weapons recovered from a Pakistani spy drone, which was shot down by the Border Security Force (BSF) on Saturday morning in Kathua, might have been brought for a terrorist who is active in Pulwama.

"An AK-47, an M4 carbine and a pistol were recovered from Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist's possession in Kulgam. It has been seen that Jaish terrorists carry M4 rifles. An M4 rifle was recovered in yesterday's shooting of Pakistani drone," Kumar said.

"'Ali bhai' was mentioned in the intercepts of Kathua incident. When we checked records, we found that a Pakistani terrorist, Furkan, is active in Pulwama. The M4 rifle might have been brought for Furkan by the Pakistani drone," he said.

Speaking on the encounter in Srinagar's Zabidal where three terrorists were eliminated, IG Kumar said: "Since they were local terrorists, we asked some prominent people to appeal to the three terrorists to surrender but they didn't budge and threw a hand grenade instead and were killed in the ensuing gun battle. Two of them have been identified."