Srinagar: A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer was killed in a brief gunfight with militants in the Basantgarh-Ramnagar area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur district on Monday afternoon.
The police sources in garrison town of Udhampur said that a joint patrolling party of the CRPF and the J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) was on routine patrolling at Dudu, a remote area of the district’s Basantgarh area, when it came under a sneak attack of militants who fired their automatic rifles at around 3.30 pm.
The sources said that Inspector Kuldeep Singh of the CRPF’s 187th battalion laid down his life in the brief exchange of fire between the two sides. One report said that he received a grievous bullet wound in the exchange of fire and later died on way to the hospital. However, the local sources said that he died on the spot when hit in a barrage of militant gunfire.
The police and CRPF reinforcements have been joined by a column of the Army to chase the militants who are reported to have fled into the wooded hills of the area following the security forces responding to their attack with intense gunfire.
Udhampur falls in the Jammu region which has witnessed a spike in terror attacks and clashes between the militants and security forces in the recent weeks in which the security forces particularly the Army suffered heavy losses. Both the Army and police officials believe that "a highly trained and heavily equipped group of terrorists backed by Pakistan" are involved in the terror attacks and other incidents of violence in the region.
The Army has 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 the Chenab valley and neighbouring districts of Udhampur, Kathua and Poonch and Rajouri but has achieved a little success, so far.
