Four police personnel have been killed in action during an encounter with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua district, sources said on Thursday. Two of the terrorists have also been shot dead while three to four terrorists are still holed up.
Five security personnel, including a deputy superintendent of police, have been injured and are undergoing treatment at a hospital.
Teams from the Army, the National Security Guard, the Border Security Force, Police, the Special Operations Group, and the Central Reserve Police Force had been carrying out searches in the area for the past five days. There was an exchange of fire on Sunday and a local resident had informed the police on Tuesday that two men in army uniform had asked her for water while they were having food in the area.
Police suffered casualties on Thursday after cops entered deep inside the forests and engaged in close quarters combat with heavily armed terrorists.
In the ensuing gun battle, two terrorists were killed. But, before neutralising the terrorists, four policemen were killed in action and five others were injured, said an official involved in the operation.
“So far we have not retrieved bodies of fallen cops due to adverse terrain and presence of more terrorists there,” said an official.
Nalin Prabhat, Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police, is leading this major anti-terrorist operation in Kathua. Mr Prabhat confirmed the killing of two terrorists and exuded confidence that other holed-up terrorists will also be neutralised during the operation.
On Sunday, at least five terrorists were trapped at Sanyal forests. After a fierce gun battle with the police, they managed to escape and reached Juthana, 20 km away. They left behind magazines of US-made M4 rifles at the first encounter site, indicating that they were equipped with state-of-the-art weapons.
On Thursday morning, police cornered them again at the Juthana forests and a fierce encounter erupted.
The operation was supported by helicopters, drones, bulletproof vehicles, and sniffer dogs and security agencies had questioned several people and picked up three suspects. On Tuesday, the forces had recovered two grenades among other material.
The tracksuits found among a large cache of ammunition and other materials in the Sanyal forests were identical to those worn by the four Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) terrorists killed in the Assar forests and Doda in June and August last year, a report by news agency IANS said.
The terrorists are believed to have inflitrated into India on Saturday.