Army jawan killed in gunfight with militants in J&K’s Baramulla

SRINAGAR: An Army jawan was critically wounded in a gun fight with separatist militants in Kashmir Valley’s north-western Baramulla district late Wednesday. He died in a military hospital on Thursday, a defence spokesman said.

The fighting broke out in Baramulla’s Washran village after a joint team of the Army and J&K police moved in at 5 am on Wednesday to flush out militants hiding there. The defence spokesman said that while the security forces were moving towards the woods close to a cluster of residential houses a militant opened fire grievously injuring Rifleman Kulbushan Manta.

He was immediately evacuated to Baramulla’s Government Medical College Hospital and later airlifted to Srinagar’s 92 Base Army Hospital where he suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Thursday morning and died soon thereafter. His mortal remains were after a wreath laying ceremony here sent to his native village Gaunth near Shimla in Himachal Pradesh for the last rites to be performed with full military honours on Friday, the spokesman said.

In a condolence message to his wife Neetu Kumari, the commander of Srinagar-based 15 Corps, Lieutenant General ADS Aujla, has said that her husband and his sacrifice “epitomize the values, traditions and ethos of the Indian Army”.

The police officials said that a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) militant identified as Nisar Ahmad Bhat, a local Kashmiri, was arrested during the operation whereas his Pakistani accomplice known by his code name ‘Usman’ and wanted in various cases is being pursued.

Meanwhile, a militant was killed in a brief encounter with the police in Kausarnag area of southern Kulgam district on Thursday, a police spokesman here said.