Civilian dies of injuries sustained in clash in Anantnag, death toll rises to 3 | India News

Srinagar: The death toll in the overnight anti-terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district rose to three on Sunday as one of the two civilians injured in the encounter died, officials said. Abdul Rashid Dar, who was injured in a terrorist firing on Saturday, succumbed to his injuries at a city hospital early on Sunday, officials said.

Two army personnel were killed and two civilians injured in a fierce gunfight with militants in Ahlan Gagarmandu forest area in Anantnag district at an altitude of 10,000 feet on Saturday, officials said. The operation to hunt down the militants continued despite the difficult topography.

The gunfight began on Saturday afternoon during a cordon and search operation launched by security forces based on intelligence reports indicating the presence of terrorists in the remote Ahlan Gagarmandu forest in the Kokernag belt. According to officials, a group of terrorists opened fire on the joint search teams comprising army personnel, including paratroopers, and local police.

In the ensuing gunfight, six army personnel and two civilians were injured, the officials said, adding that the injured soldiers were rushed to a nearby hospital where two succumbed soon after arrival. The slain army personnel have been identified as Havildar Dipak Kumar Yadav and Lance Naik Praveen Sharma. Reinforcements have been deployed in the area and operations are underway to locate and neutralise the fleeing terrorists, the officials said. This encounter is a sad reminder of a similar operation in the general Kokernag area last September during which four security personnel, including Colonel Manpreet Singh, Major Ashish and Deputy Director Humayun Bhat, were killed in the week-long encounter with the terrorists.

Two terrorists, including a senior Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander, were also neutralised during that operation. Security forces have stepped up their efforts in the Kokernag forests after an encounter in Doda district on July 15 that left four soldiers, including a captain, dead. It is believed that the terrorists involved in the recent Anantnag incident may have crossed over from Kishtwar district after escaping the encounter in Doda. Giving details of the ongoing operation, a Srinagar-based defence spokesperson said that it was confirmed through human and electronic means on August 5 that the terrorists responsible for the atrocities in Doda region in July had infiltrated through the Kishtwar range in the Kapran-Garol area of ​​south Kashmir.

“The Rashtriya Rifles and Jammu and Kashmir Police have been relentlessly tracking these terrorists and pinpoint operations were launched on the night of August 9 and 10 in the hills east of Kapran where these terrorists are said to have been holed up. “A suspicious movement was observed around 2 pm on August 10. The attacks (by the security forces) were immediately responded to with indiscriminate, desperate and reckless firing by the terrorists in which two army personnel and two civilians who were present in the vicinity were injured,” the spokesman said.

The spokesman said that the terrorist background of the injured civilians is being investigated. “The area is located at an altitude of over 10,000 feet, has thick undergrowth, large rocks, nallahs and reentrants which pose a serious challenge to operations. Security forces are moving deliberately and are in the process of hunting down the terrorists,” the spokesman said.

The situation remains tense as security forces continue to hunt down terrorists in the area.