Srinagar: Two Army jawans were killed and four others injured in a militant ambush on an Army convoy at Qazigund, the gateway to the Kashmir Valley from the south on Saturday.
The police and Army sources said that the convoy came under the militant gunfire at Lower Munda, Qazigund along the Srinagar-Jammu highway while moving to Srinagar from the garrison town of Udhampur. A Road Opening Party (ROP) in the area retaliated to the militant firing, triggering an encounter between the two sides which was under way when reports last came in.
Reinforcements from the Army, J&K police and CRPF joined the operation but the assailants were reported to have fled the area.
The sources said that six soldiers onboard a vehicle which was part of the convoy were injured.
Two of them succumbed in hospital. The other injured soldiers were brought to Srinagar-based 92 Base Hospital of the Army, the sources added.
Hizb-ul-Mujahideen outfit claimed the responsibility for the attack and claimed that four soldiers were killed and seven others injured. The outfit’s operational commander Mehmood Ghaznavi was quoted as saying in a statement that He announced ‘cash rewards’ for militants involved in the attack.
The attack came on a day when home minister, Rajnath Singh, said that the situation in Kashmir has seen considerable improvement and that the government will have a complete control over the situation soon.
