Five Army personnel were martyred after militants triggered an explosive device following an encounter with security forces in the forests of Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district on Friday morning. Following the incident at Kesari area of Kandi hamlet, mobile internet services were suspended in Rajouri.
A statement released by Army PRO Lt Colonel Devender Anand said that the security forces, in a joint operation, had cordoned off a group of terrorists in the Kandi area of the Kotranka sub-division and the encounter began at around 8 am. “Indian Army columns have been conducting relentless intelligence based operations to flush out a group of terrorists involved in an ambush on an army truck in the Tota Gali area of Bhata Dhurian in Jammu region,” it said.
It added: “On specific information about the presence of terrorists in the Kandi Forest in the Rajouri Sector, a joint operation was launched on May 3. Around 7.30 am on Friday, a search team established contact with a group of terrorists well entrenched in a cave. The area is thickly vegetated with rocky and steep cliffs.”
As the joint teams of forces approached towards the spot, the hiding terrorists fired upon them, which was retaliated, triggering the encounter, the Army said.
The area has a history of terrorist movement. A few days after the killing of four soldiers in an attack on an Army camp at Pargal in the Budhal area in August last year, the police and security forces had established contact with two terrorists in the Kesari Top area. However, the terrorists had managed to escape taking advantage of the dense forests.
Leave a comment
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *