Srinagar: An army soldier was shot and injured by suspected militants in south Kashmir’s Tral area on Wednesday evening (December 4), hours after an army camp was attacked in Poonch district of Jammu.
The victim, identified as Delair Mushtaq Sofi, a resident of Khanagund village of Tral in Pulwama district, had come home recently on a leave to spend some time with his family.
A senior police officer said that Sofi was travelling in a car on Wednesday evening when suspected militants, whose number has not been ascertained so far, fired gunshots at him near his home. The suspects later fled from the area.
“The victim was immediately evacuated by police with the help of locals to a nearby hospital. He had suffered two bullet injuries in his right leg and his condition is stable,” the officer said, adding that a search operation was launched in the area to nab the perpetrators.
Block Medical Officer of Tral sub-district hospital, Dr Zahoor Ahmad Bhat, said that the victim was later shifted to the army hospital. Sofi works with Territorial Army and he is posted with 29 Rashtriya Rifles in north Kashmir’s Pattan.
The Kashmir Strikers, a newly formed militant group, has claimed responsibility for the attack which was the second of its kind in the past two months in which a local soldier was targeted by suspected militants.
A rifleman of the Territorial Army was abducted and killed by suspected militants when security forces launched a search operation in south Kashmir’s Kokernag on October 8.
Grenades lobbed at army camp post
The attack in Tral took place barely hours after suspected militants lobbed grenades at a military post in Poonch district of Jammu’s Pir Panjal region which, however, didn’t cause any damage.
Reports said that two grenades were lobbed at the post behind an army camp in Surankote area of Poonch along the Line of Control. While one of the grenades exploded with a loud bang but didn’t cause any damage, the second one remained unexploded, which was later defused by a bomb disposal squad.
According to officials, the safety pin of one of the grenades was found near the perimeter wall of the Army camp, following which a massive search operation was launched by the army and police to track down the militants.
Wednesday’s attacks took place a day after a top militant of The Resistance Front, which officials believe is a shadow outfit of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), was gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Harwan locality on the outskirts of Srinagar.
According to police, the slain militant identified as Junaid Ahmad Bhat was a top commander of LeT and one of the two members of a squad who killed seven workers, including a doctor, after storming the base of Apco Infra construction company in Gagangir locality of Ganderbal district in October.
Bhat was caught by a CCTV camera holding an assault rifle and looking for his targets in a living quarter at the base which served as nighttime shelter for workers of the company which has been building the strategic Z-Morh tunnel on Srinagar-Leh highway.
At least one to two militants are believed to be holed up in the higher reaches of Harwan locality where a search operation entered the third day on Wednesday. Due to dense forests and thick vegetation, security forces are proceeding with the operation cautiously to prevent any collateral damage.
At least 63 militants have been gunned down this year so far in Jammu and Kashmir where insurgency-related violence targeting army and police personnel as well as civilians has witnessed a sharp uptick in recent months. At least 31 civilians have been killed in 2024, which is the highest in the last three years.
The insurgency, which was earlier limited to Kashmir valley only, has spilled to the Jammu region as well following the reading down of Article 370. According to official data, eight out of 10 districts in Jammu witnessed militant attacks this year in which security personnel and many civilians, including Hindu pilgrims, were killed.
