Curfew was clamped in parts of the Kashmir valley on Friday as a precautionary measure when the body of terrorist Zakir Musa was recovered by the security forces from the encounter spot in Dadsara village of South Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

Musa was killed on Thursday night but his body could be retrieved only by 6 am, after which Army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia confirmed his killing.

Giving details of the encounter, a police spokesman said Musa was carrying lethal weapons including rockets, grenade launchers, projectiles, huge ammunition and warlike stores that were recovered from near his body. Besides terror activities in J-K, he was also involved in the recent serial bomb blasts in Punjab’s Jalandhar.

The police described killing of the lone surviving terrorist of the erstwhile Burhan Wani group as a “major success”. He had been active for the last six years and was involved in several terror attacks.

Musa, who had threatened that he would slit throat of the top separatists and hang them in Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, was the founder of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, considered Kashmir’s version of Al-Qaeda. He was involved in several terror crimes, including killing of a woman and policemen besides looting banks.

Before making official announcement of Musa’s killing and handing over his body to his family, the authorities clamped curfew in several parts of Kashmir valley, including downtown Srinagar, and switched off internet and broadband services to prevent spread of rumours.

All education institutions across Kashmir were shut and train services suspended as a precautionary measure. Killing of Burhan Wani in 2016 had triggered large-scale violence in the Valley.

Spontaneous protests broke out on Thursday night in Shopian, Pulwama, Awantipora and downtown Srinagar soon after the news of Musa’s killing spread, and people raised slogans. The restrictions have been ordered due to apprehensions of violence at Friday prayers.

Heavy deployment of Army, BSF, CRPF and police has been made in capital city Srinagar, south Kashmir’s Pulwama, Anantnag, Shopian and Kulgam districts among other areas.

A joint team of Army’s 42 RR, Special Operations Group and CRPF cordoned off the Dadsara village late evening on Thursday following credible reports of Musa hiding in the house of a local chemist in the Tral area. Musa fired grenades at the security forces with the under-barrel grenade launcher he was carrying. The security forces had to blast the chemist’s house to prevent collateral damage.

Musa reportedly declined the offer sent to him through the chemist to surrender.

The top category terrorist, Musa had joined the terror group Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) in 2013 and succeeded Burhan Wani after his killing in 2016. However, he quit HM and launched Al-Qaeda’s version in Kashmir.

Security forces had been for the past few months trying to track Musa but he had gone underground with reports of his presence in Punjab coming in.

On 2 May, he was declared a proclaimed offender by the NIA special court in Mohali (Punjab) for his involvement in serial blasts in Jalandhar for which a case was registered against him at the Maqsudan police station. The NIA was investigating the blast cases.