The operation was started after reports that militants are hiding in a house near a forest in the area.
Srinagar: Five militants and two Army jawans killed and four others injured in 18-hour long fierce gunbattle in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Saturday.
Police and Army officials said that the fighting started on Friday evening after troops from Army’s 41 Rashtriya Rifles, 16 Grenadiers and 19 Maratha Regiment along with the men from J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and CRPF moved in to take on a heavily armed group of militants hiding in a private house in Marsari village close to Zunreshi forest area.
“The operation was launched after receiving information that militants were camping in a house in the area. As the security forces zeroed in on the house, they came under a barrage of gunfire, injuring one Army jawan,” a police officer said over the phone from Kupwara.
The exchange of fire continued till around noon on Saturday, killing five militants and two Army jawans. Among the injured is an Army Major, reports said. Earlier reports put the number of militants killed to four, but SSP Kupwara Ijaz Ahmed Bhat said that the corpse of another militant has been retrieved from the debris of the house. He also said that five AK-47 rifles were also found at the encounter site.
Intelligence inputs available with the police authorities said that the militants’ group had been active in the area for the past about three months after it sneaked into Kupwara from across the Line of Control (LoC). The group may also have had one or two local militants on it, officials said.
A report from Kupwara said that the house in which the militants were hiding was blown up by the security forces using explosives during the encounter. The police officer said that the injured soldiers were shifted to a nearby military hospital where their condition was stated to “stable”. The officer said that one of the two other soldiers died on way to hospital and the other soon after he was brought to hospital.
Officials said that the identity of the slain militants is yet to be ascertained.
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