J&K: Three ultras gunned down in firefight

Srinagar: Three militants were gunned down by the security forces in a remote area of Jammu and Kashmir’s eastern Doda district on Wednesday. The officials said that though the identities of the slain men are being ascertained, it is believed they were part of the same group of militants which had carried out back-to-back attacks on the security forces in the hilly region earlier this month, leaving five Army jawans and two J&K police personnel injured.

“After an intense firefight, three hardcore terrorists have been neutralized in a joint operation of the Indian Army and J&K police. A large cache of warlike stores, including automatic assault rifles has been recovered,” the Army’s Nagrota (Jammu)-based 16 Corps-also known as White Knight Corps- wrote on microblogging site ‘X’.

The fighting took place at Lagor in the Sinoo area of Doda’s Gandoh region after the men from J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG), the Indian Army and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) moved in to take on the militants. “During the joint operation in a village in Sinoo panchayat, the security forces came under heavy fire from the terrorists hiding in a dhok (mud house) on a slope,” a police official said. The security forces returned the fire and the clash continued for several hours, he added.

The officials said that the operation is still under way and that the identities of the militants will be only ascertained once it is over. A police official said that the arms and ammunition found on the slain men includes a US made M4 carbine. The M4 carbine is a 5.56×45mm NATO, gas-operated, magazine-fed carbine developed in the United States during the 1980s.

A defence spokesman said that the operation in the area was launched earlier during the day on Wednesday “based on specific intelligence inputs”. Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Jammu Anand Jain said that during a search operation contact was established with the militants which led to a fierce gunfight between the two sides. Mr. Jain along with DIG Doda-Kishtwar-Ramban range Shridhar Patil and Senior Superintendent of Police, Doda, Javid Iqbal, rushed to the encounter site to supervise the operation. Mr. Jain confirmed the killing of three militants.

The police sources said that a cop was injured in the clash. The security forces had on June 12 launched a massive combing operation in the Chattergalla area of Bhaderwah and Tanta Top area of Gandoh following two terror-related incidents.

On June 12, A jawan of the J&K's police's Special Operation Group (SOG) was injured in a gunfight with militants at Tanta, a remote area of the Gandoh-Bhalessa belt of the Doda district.

On June 11, a group of three to four militants targeted a joint check-post of the J&K police and the Army at Chattergalla, injuring five soldiers and a Special Police Officer.

After the attack and exchange of fire with the security forces, the militants fled into nearby woods. The J&K police with the Army and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) immediately launched a massive search operation in the higher reaches of Doda to “neutralise” them.

Meanwhile, the Northern Army Commander Lieutenant General M V Suchindra Kumar on Wednesday visited J&K’s Reasi district and reviewed the security situation of the region.

“His visit to the area along with General Officer Commanding (GOC) of 16 Corps Lieutenant General Navin Sachdeva and GoC Romeo Force become important to review the security setup in the wake of a terror attack on a bus carrying pilgrims in the area”, a defence spokesman said in Jammu.

On June 9, a group of militants targeted a bus carrying pilgrims from Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to the revered cave-shrine of Mata Vaisho Devi at Kanda near the Teryath village of Reasi’s Poni area. Nine persons including seven pilgrims and the driver and conductor were killed and 41 other passengers injured as the 53-seater bus plunged into a deep ravine after the driver who was reportedly hit by a bullet fired by the assailants lost balance of the vehicle.

The sneak attack was carried out by two militants-one of them reportedly a Pakistani national-on the day when Narendra Modi was sworn in for the third term as Prime Minister at a grand ceremony in Delhi.