Army kills 3 militants in gunbattle

At least three militants, believed to be Pakistani nationals, were killed by Army troops in a fierce gunbattle in the Tangdhar areas close to the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Sunday.

Officials said the trio was involved in a recent sneak attack on a Border Security Force (BSF) foot-patrol while it was coming out of a camp of its 38 Battalion at Neechan in Tangdhar. Three troopers were injured in the August 19 attack.

The sources at Army’s Srinagar-based Chinar Corps said that the special forces from the Army’s Parachute Regiment (4 Para) launched an operation in the area after tracking down the movement of the militants’ group in the area. After being followed into woods of Shamaswari, the paratroopers quickly took on the trapped militants, the sources said.

“Three of them had been killed till reports last came in. In order to ensure that the others, if there are any, are also neutralised, the entire area had been sealed and attempts were being made to smoke out the terrorists,” the sources said.

The sources said that it is believed that the militants’ group sneaked into Jammu and Kashmir from PoK recently and the attack on the BSF patrolling party may have been its first strike. It was the second infiltration that took place in Tangdhar in the last couple of months.

On June 16, four militants and an Army jawan were killed and two soldiers injured in a gunbattle near Gulsari Nar Baraf post in the area. A day before the incident, an infiltrating militant and a soldier were killed and five other Army personnel, including a major, were injured in a similar clash in the neighbouring Machael sector. In two separate encounters, a total of five militants and two soldiers were killed and seven soldiers injured.

The sources said that three AK rifles with 15 magazines and some ammunition were found on the militants slain on Sunday.