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Pakistan-based militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen on Friday announced that it had replaced its chief commander (operations) in Jammu and Kashmir Abdul Majeed Dar with Saiful Islam.
Dar came into the media focus last year when he declared an unilateral ceasefire in the state.
A Srinagar news agency KPS, quoting a Hizb spokesman, said that the decision to relieve Dar was taken at the outfit's central command council meeting, which was presided over by the Hizb's supreme commander Syed Salahuddin in Muzaffarabad (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) on Friday.
After due deliberation, the command council relieved Dar of his charge as chief commander (operations) on his completing one year in the job, the Hizb spokesman had said.
Dar's sudden removal has brought to fore the differences within the Hizbul Mujaheedin.
It was in early 1991 that Dar merged his outfit Tehrik-ul Jehadi Islami with the Hizbul Mujahideen then led by veteran militant Master Ahsan Dar, who now lives in PoK.
The merger was a big boost for the Hizb.
Dar later went across and stayed in PoK before returning early last year.
Dar's declaration of unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir to 'facilitate a solution to the Kashmir problem' had been withdrawn by Syed Salahuddin after the Government of India refused to accept the demand of the outfit to 'involve Pakistan in the talks'.
Nearly one hundred people were killed by unidentified gunmen in a single night across J&K days before Salahuddin withdrew the ceasefire on August 8 last year.
Two days after the withdrawal of the ceasefire, 15 people, mostly local policemen and a photo-journalist, died in a car bomb explosion outside the State Bank of India on Residency Road.
Complete Coverage of Hizb-initiated Ceasefire
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