Security forces and Jammu and Kashmir Police have killed 102 terrorists till now this year, making it the highest number of killings in the January-July period in seven years, a police official said on Friday.
The security forces also have prepared a hit-list of several other terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen.
The slain terrorists included Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Bashir Lashkari who was involved in the killing of six policemen in south Kashmir and top Hizbul Mujahideen militant Sabzar Ahmad Bhat, he noted.
The security forces and police are going after terrorists as part of the operation "hunt down" and on the basis of a "hit-list" of terrorists, said the official who refused to be identified.
The killing of 102 terrorists till July 12 makes it the highest number in the past seven years, the official said.
Earlier in 2010, the highest number of 156 militants were killed between January and July that year. Last year, 77 terrorists were killed during this period, 51 each were killed in 2015 and 2014, respectively, 43 in 2013, 37 in 2012 and 61 in 2011, according to the police data.
The hunt for terrorists of various outfits has been intensified under an operational strategy, the official said.
The counter-terrorist grid continues to maintain dominance and deny any space to terrorists, the official said, adding synergised hard intelligence-based joint operations involving the J&K police and central paramilitary forces have been the hallmark of these operations.