SRINAGAR: A Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Army was killed and three other jawans were injured in a fierce gun battle with Islamic militants, raging in the hills of Jammu and Kashmir’s eastern Kishtwar district since Sunday morning.
The slain JCO has been identified as Naib Subedar Rakesh Kumar of the Army’s 2 PARA (Special Forces). The Army’s Nagrota (Jammu)-based 16 Corps- also called White Knight Corps- while confirming it said that he was part of a joint operation launched by it and the J&K police in the general area of Kishtwar’s Bhart Ridge on November 9. “General-Officer-Commanding of White Knight Corps and all ranks salute the supreme sacrifice of the Braveheart Naib Subedar Rakesh Kumar…We stand with the bereaved family in this hour of grief,” it said in a post on ‘X’.
The Army said that it is the same group of terrorists which had kidnapped and subsequently murdered two residents Nazir Ahmad and Kuldeep Kumar who were working as Village Defence Guards (VDG) in Kishtwar’s Munzla Dhar (Adhwari) area where they had gone for grazing their cattle earlier this week.
The Army and J&K police officials said that, after the gory incident, a massive manhunt was launched in the wooded areas of Keshwan and Kuntwara of Kishtwar to track down the assailants and bring them to justice. “The contract with the terrorists was established at around 11 am on Sunday when they were intercepted by the security forces in the Keshwan forest, a few kilometres from the spot where the bullet-riddled bodies of VDGs were found,” an official said.
The White Knight Corps said that the operation was launched based on specific intelligence input regarding the presence of terrorists in the hilly area of Bhart Ridge. Three or four militants are believed to have been trapped in the area, the officials said.
The sources said that the condition of two of the three injured soldiers is “critical”. GOC White Knight Corps Lt. General Naveen Sachdeva along with other senior officers flew in the area to review the operations in progress, a defence spokesman said.
Meanwhile, a brief gunfight erupted between a group of militants and the security forces in the Zabarwan-Harwan hills of Srinagar at around 9 am on Sunday. Loud boom of gunfire and an explosion was felt and heard almost throughout the City.
The police said that an operation was launched jointly by the J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations group (SOG) and the Army in the Zabarwan-Harwan hills near the Ishbar suburb of Srinagar “based on specific intelligence about the presence of terrorists.” It added that an exchange of fire ensued during the operation which was underway as reports last came in.
