Srinagar: Four Army jawans have been injured, one of them critically, in a gunfight raging in Chattru region of Jammu and Kashmir’s eastern district of Kishtwar since Friday afternoon.
The Army sources in garrison town of Udhampur said that reinforcements including a column of elite PARA commandos have been rushed to the hilly region to take on the militants more effectively.
A spokesman of the Army’s Nagrota (Jammu)-based 16 Corps-also known as White Knight Corps- said that an operation based on the intelligence inputs was jointly launched by the Army and the J&K police in the Shah Pursal area of Chattru early Friday. “A contact was established with the terrorists at 3.30 pm. In the ensuing firefight four Army personnel have been injured,” the spokesman said, adding that the operation is in progress.
The Army and police sources said that three of the injured jawans were treated locally and the fourth one was evacuated to the nearby Command Hospital as his condition was serious.
On September 11, the Indian Army had gunned down two militants in a firefight that broke out in the Khandara top area of Udhampur district soon after the security forces moved in after learning about the presence of a heavily armed group of militants there.
Earlier on the intervening night of September 8 and 9, the the Army together with the J&K police had killed two infiltrators soon after they sneaked into the Lam sector of J&K' Nowshera area. The Army had claimed that a large quantity of 'war-like' stores including two AK 47 rifles and a pistol were found on the slain infiltrators.
Kishtwar, Udhampur and Nowshera fall in the Jammu region which has witnessed a spike in terror attacks and clashes between the militants and security forces in the recent months in which the security forces particularly the Army suffered heavy losses.
The Army recently inducted 3,000 additional troops including two battalions of the Assam Rifles and 500 para commandos before launching an “Operation All Out” against the militants in Jammu region's Chenab valley and neighbouring districts of Udhampur, Kathua and in the Poonch and Rajouri districts bordering with PoJK.Two of the four soldiers injured in the Kishtwar gunfight are reported to have died in a military hospital, a source said.
Meanwhile, an encounter broke out between militants and security forces in the Chak Tapper village of the Pattan tehsil in northwestern Baramulla district late Friday night, the police sources in capital Srinagar said.
