NEW DELHI, Oct 11: An army officer and four soldiers were killed in action during an encounter between security forces and terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district on Monday, officials said.
Sources said a heavy gunfight was underway in the Surankote area with four to five heavily armed terrorists who crossed into the country a few days ago. The anti-insurgency operation was launched in a village close to Dera Ki Gali in the early hours following intelligence inputs about their presence, they said.
The gunfight began after a cordon-and-search operation was carried out by the Indian Army on the basis of intelligence inputs in villages close to DKG in the Surankote jurisdiction of Poonch district. The hiding terrorists fired on the search parties resulting in a fierce gunfight and critical injuries to a Junior Commissioned Officer or JCO and four other soldiers. They died from their injuries.
The Armymen who were killed have been identified as Naib Subedar Jaswinder Singh, Naik Mandeep Singh Vill, Sepoy Gajjan Singh, Sepoy Saraj Singh and Sepoy Vaisakh H.
Jaswinder, Mandeep and Gajjan hailed from Punjab. Saraj hailed from Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh and Vaisakh from Kollam in Kerala.
Army spokesman Lt Colonel Devender Anand said the encounter was still underway and further details were awaited.
Meanwhile, another encounter was underway in Chamrer forests along the Mughal Road in Poonch. Three to four militants are suspected to be trapped in the area, sources said, adding that more reinforcements of police and security forces have been rushed to the area to plug all escape routes of the terrorists, they said.
The incident comes amid increasing terrorist activities in Kashmir valley in recent weeks and the revival of ceasefire violations along the Line of Control with Pakistan. Over the last week, security forces have detained over 900 people in the union territory in response to the killing of seven civilians.
(Manas Dasgupta)
