Thursday, Apr 18, 2024 | Last Update : 10:21 PM IST
Six-day standoff ends, three LeT men killed in gunfight
An Army jawan was also killed in the battle in which the militants and troops were holed up in the woods of Bandipore.
Srinagar: Three Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) militants and an Army jawan were killed in a gunfight in Jammu and Kashmir’s northern district of Bandipore on Saturday. Two other soldiers were injured in the clash which ended a six-day standoff between the holed up militants and the troops in the woods of Bandipore, the police and Army sources said.
Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia here said that the Army killed three militants in an operation in Danna village of Bandipora, about 55-km north of summer capital Srinagar.
“The weapons of slain terrorists and other war-like stores were recovered from the site of the operation,” he said.
He added that the fighting which broke out during the search operation in the area “is over now.”
The Army sources said that Rifleman Shiv Kumar of 31 Rashtriya Rifles who was among three soldiers injured in the gun fight on Saturday was evacuated to Srinagar’s 92-base Army hospital where he succumbed to injuries.
The police sources said that the Army’s 27 and 31 Rashtriya Rifles had launched the operation Chaan Daji and Dani Behak forest area of Bandipore on last Monday after the militants targeted a group of soldiers near Danna village.
The operation ended on Saturday with the killing of three militants who had been trapped in the area after the troops laid siege to it, the sources said.
Earlier during the day on Saturday the security forces launched cordon-and-search-operation at Sub-District Hospital in Tral town of south Kashmir's Pulwama district following reports about the presence of militants within the premises.
The men from J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG), the Army’s 42 Rashtriya Rifles and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) after laying siege to the hospital started searches the buildings.
