Srinagar: One civilian and two army soldiers have been killed in an ongoing counter-insurgency operation in a forested area of Anantnag district in south Kashmir, where a group of suspected militants is believed to be trapped, officials said on Monday (August 12).
Three gunfights are underway in Jammu and Kashmir with two of them taking place in Jammu division which has witnessed a sharp uptick in militant activities in recent years. “One more civilian was injured (in Anantnag encounter) and is being treated,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kashmir, Vidhi Kumar Birdi, said.
The encounter in Anantnag broke out on Saturday when the army claimed to have received “credible intelligence reports” about the presence of militants in Ahlan Gadole area where a commanding officer and a major of the army and a police officer were ambushed and killed last year, in one of the worst militant attacks on security forces.
The army said that Havildar Dipak Kumar Yadav and Lance Naik Praveen Sharma suffered critical injuries in the initial exchange of gunfire on Saturday and they were evacuated to a hospital where they succumbed. Two civilians were also injured in the gunfire, of whom one person identified as Abdul Rashid Dar also died.
“We are investigating the role of civilians who were in close proximity to the encounter site,” Birdi told reporters at the encounter site which falls on the Chenab Valley axis connecting Anantnag district in Kashmir Valley with Jammu’s Doda district.
An army spokesperson said that “human and electronic intelligence (has) confirmed” that the group of militants in Anantnag were “responsible for the atrocities in the Doda district in July (and they) had infiltrated into the Kapran-Gadol area of south Kashmir (after Doda attacks)”.
Four army soldiers were killed, including a captain, and two more were injured in two, back-to-back militant attacks in Doda on July 16 and July 18 with a relatively unknown ‘Kashmir Tigers’ outfit claiming responsibility which officials believe is an offshoot of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad.
The Srinagar-based army spokesperson said that an operation was launched on Friday “following relentless tracking by the Rashtriya Rifles and the J&K Police… in the mountainous terrain east of Kapran” in Gadol area of Anantnag.
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“Suspicious movement was detected around 2 pm on Saturday. The security forces’ challenge was met with indiscriminate and reckless firing from the terrorists, resulting in injuries to two army personnel and two civilians in the vicinity. The authorities are currently investigating the terror connections of the injured civilians,” the spokesperson said.
According to reports, security forces have widened the area of forests in Gadol where the search operation is underway and additional reinforcements, including the army’s elite paratroopers, have been dispatched to assist in the operation.
Meanwhile, a group of militants fired on security forces in Jammu’s Kishtwar district, prompting the authorities to briefly suspend the ongoing Machail Mata Yatra. A senior police official said that suspected militants fired on a team of army, police and paramilitary forces who were carrying out searches in Nownatta, Naagseni Peyaas area of Kishtwar.
“The yatra was later resumed. There were no casualties or injuries in the firing. Additional forces have been rushed to the area and searches are underway in the forests to hunt down the perpetrators,” the official said.
The Machail Mata Yatra, which started on July 25, is an arduous Hindu pilgrimage to the shrine of Goddess Durga which is located in the towering mountains of Kishtwar’s Padder tehsil. More than one lakh pilgrims have paid obeisance at the shrine so far.
Meanwhile, a massive search operation is underway in the forests of Basantgarh in Jammu’s Udhampur district after security forces and militants exchanged fire on Sunday.
Officials said that the incident took place in Khaned forest of Udhampur and additional reinforcements have been rushed to the area.
