New Delhi: One airman was killed and four injured when militants ambushed an Indian Air Force convoy on Saturday, May 4, in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir, the IAF said.
Officials said that the attack took place at around 6 pm on Saturday when a small convoy of IAF personnel came under heavy fire in the Surankot area of Poonch. Sources said the convoy was on the way to Shahsitar from Jarawali.
An Indian Air Force vehicle convoy was attacked by militants in the Poonch district of J&K, near Shahsitar. Cordon and search operations are underway presently in the area by local military units. The convoy has been secured, and further investigation is under progress.
Advertisement— Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) May 4, 2024
Two vehicles were hit on two to three sides, sources said, but only one of them bore the brunt, while the attackers escaped from the area, officials said. In the meantime, additional forces were rushed to the area who moved the targeted vehicles into the army’s base in the Shahsitar area while a unit of the Rashtriya Rifle laid a cordon around the area.
“Search operations are underway in the area,” said an official, adding that the injured personnel were airlifted to the Army’s Command Hospital in Udhampur for treatment.
A video from the scene of the attack showed the bullet-pockmarked front windshield of one of the vehicles which was targeted by the militants. The windshield has at least 24 bullet entry marks, suggesting that the attackers were waiting for their targets.
The strike in Poonch is the first major attack on security forces this year in the Pir Panjal region, where a group of heavily armed and highly trained militants have inflicted heavy casualties on security forces following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019.
On November 22 last year, four Indian Army officials including two captains were killed in an encounter in the adjoining Rajouri district. One militant was reportedly also killed in the encounter.
After J&K was bifurcated into two Union territories, militancy-related violence and local recruitment has gone down significantly in the Kashmir Valley but the theatre of conflict has seemingly shifted to Jammu which was a militancy-free region before August 5, 2019.
Some of the deadliest attacks on security forces and civilians have been reported from Rajouri since 2019. Five soldiers of the Army’s Special Forces unit were killed in an ambush in Budhal area of Rajouri while an officer was injured in an IED explosion in May last year.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge condemned what he said was a “dastardly terror attack”:
Deeply pained by the cowardly terror attack on the IAF vehicle in Poonch, Jammu & Kashmir.
We strongly and unequivocally condemn this dastardly terror attack and join the nation in standing together against terrorism.
Our deepest condolences to the family of the brave air…
Advertisement— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) May 4, 2024
