Kishtwar: Two Army personnel, including a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO), were killed and two others injured during an encounter with terrorists in the upper regions of Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district on Friday.
The clash ensued when a combined team of the Army and police, following a tip-off, initiated a cordon-and-search operation in the Naidgham area of the Chhatroo belt, which links Kishtwar to Anantnag district in south Kashmir.
Officials reported an exchange of fire between the security forces’ search team and terrorists concealed in the Pingnal Dugadda forest area, situated in the higher terrain of Naidgham village, within the limits of the Chhatroo police station.
In the firefight, four Army personnel sustained injuries. Two of them, Naib Subedar Vipan Kumar, a JCO, and Sepoy Arvind Singh, succumbed to their injuries, according to the officials. They noted that one soldier died from splinter injuries due to a grenade explosion, while another suffered a fatal bullet wound to the head.
The Army also confirmed the killing of the two soldiers.
“GOC (General Officer Commanding) White Knight Corps and all ranks salute the supreme sacrifice of the Bravehearts; offer deepest condolences to the families,” the Army said.
Earlier, the Army had said the search party exchanged a heavy volume of fire with the terrorists around 3:30 pm.
“In the ensuing firefight, four army personnel have been injured. The operation is in progress,” the Jammu-based White Knight Corps said in a post on X.
The officials said the injured soldiers were airlifted to an Army hospital after preliminary treatment at a local hospital.
The encounter comes two days after the Army, in a successful operation, neutralised two Pakistani terrorists affiliated with the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) outfit in the higher reaches of Basantgarh in Udhampur district.
The Jammu and Kashmir unit of the Congress expressed grief over the killing of the two soldiers and prayed for a speedy recovery of the injured.
“The Congress strongly condemns the terrorist attack…. The BJP government has utterly failed to deal with terrorism, which has revived in the Jammu region after two decades,” Pradesh Congress Committee vice-president Ravinder Sharma said in a statement.
He said the government must take urgent measures to check terror attacks, instead of making “hollow claims” of normalcy.
