Srinagar: Five Army personnel, including a junior commissioned officer (JCO), were killed and five others injured in a sneak attack by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s frontier district of Kathua on Monday, prompting the Army to launch a massive search operation alongside the local police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in the area.
The Army and police sources said that the attack took place at around 3.30 pm outside Badnote village, 152-km away from the district headquarters. “The terrorists first tossed a hand grenade towards the Army vehicles and then opened fire on these using automatic weapons,” they said, adding that the Army personnel who were killed and injured in the sneak attack were on routine patrol duty on Machedi-Kindli-Malhar Road in Kathua.
A report from Kathua said that the security forces have encircled the forest area where terrorists are known to have been holed up after carrying out the attack. The Army has, meanwhile, pressed transport helicopters into service to airdrop the men of its Parachute Regiment (Special Forces), commonly referred to as Para (SF), in the Mandli sub-sector which falls in proximity to the place where the attack took place. The Army may also use its combat helicopters to take on the terrorists more effectively, the report said.
The officials said that the group of terrorists, which carried out the attack may have entered J&K after breaching the International Border (IB) with Pakistan along the Kathua-Samba-Jammu belt recently.
Following the sneak attack, coinciding with the 8th death anniversary of popular Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, the Army engaged the militants in a gunfight which continued as reports last came in.
Though some reports suggest that the militants escaped from the spot and ran into nearby woods after targeting the Army vehicles, a massive cordon-and-search operation was started in the area after the injured soldiers were evacuated to the hospital, the reports said. The doctors have said that four soldiers were brought dead to the hospital whereas the condition of two injured soldiers is critical. Later, one more injured soldier identified as Naik Vinod Kumar died in the hospital, raising the toll to five.
The Jammu region, mostly known to be free of separatist violence and terrorism, has been high on the terror radar in the recent past.
Last month, militants carried out four attacks in the Jammu region, three of them in a span of 24 hours. These included their opening fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims to the revered cave-shrine of Mata Vaishno Devi in the Reasi district on June 9, the day when Narendra Modi was sworn in for the third term as Prime Minister at a grand ceremony in Delhi.
Amid the barrage of gunfire, the driver lost control of the bus, resulting in its veering off the hilly road and plunging into a gorge. Seven pilgrims and the driver and conductor of the bus were killed and over forty other passengers injured.
The back-to-back attacks, which marked an escalation of separatist violence in Jammu underscored the fragility of peace in the region. These attacks came shortly after home minister Amit Shah had flagged the decline in separatist violence and terror incidents in J&K. The Union home ministry also had noted with contentment the "perceptible decline" in the number of incidents and, also, in the number of casualties among the civilians and the security forces personnel in the militancy-related violence in the Union territory after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
As the series of bloodletting incidents set the alarm bells ringing in the government and security set-up, Mr Shah called a security review meeting in New Delhi on June 16. He asked the J&K lieutenant-governor Manoj Sinha and other key functionaries of the government and the security forces officials to "crush the emerging terrorism in Jammu region and not allow its revival at any cost." He also directed the security forces to "generate human intelligence to reach out to militants operating in Jammu and plug the points where from the foreign terrorists have managed to sneak into this side."
While speaking at an official function here on June 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, "We have taken serious note of the terrorist attacks (in Jammu). The home minister took a review in Delhi and also got the feedback from J&K officials. I assure you that we will not leave any stone unturned towards teaching a lesson to the enemies of peace in J&K."
Following the escalation of violence, the security forces have been on high alert in the Jammu region.
On June 12-14, two militants and a CRPF jawan were killed in a gunfight during a cordon-and-search operation in the Hiranagar area of Kathua district. On June 26, the security forces claimed killing three foreign terrorists in a gunfight in the Gandoh area of Jammu’s Doda district.
