SRINAGAR, May 7: Indian soldiers shot dead a senior Kashmiri militant on Sunday who the army said was a bomb-making expert responsible for a series of explosions across the Himalayan region.

Mushtaq Bhat, a district commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, was killed in an ambush by troops in Tral town, an army spokesman said.

“Bhat was the mastermind of all the car bomb blasts in the occupied Kashmir since 2004 which led to a large number of casualties among security forces and innocent civilians,” spokesman V.K. Batra said.

He was a most-wanted terrorist and was active since 1993 and had undergone extensive training on making of improvised explosive devices, Batra added.—Reuters