4-5 militants ‘trapped', 2 soldiers injured as Kulgam operation enters third day
Officials said that intermittent exchanges of fire between security forces personnel and militants continued on Sunday, after the joint team of forces cordoned off Akhal village in Kulgam on Friday.
Police and Army personnel believe that a group of four to five militants are trapped in the area, officials said. One militant was killed on the first day of the gunfight.
Over the last two days, two soldiers have been injured in the exchange of fire. They were rushed to hospital and their condition is said to be stable.
On Friday evening, a joint team of Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Army and paramilitary forces cordoned off Akhal village in south Kashmir after getting inputs about the presence of militants in the area. As the joint team of forces zeroed in on the target area, militants opened fire, leading to a gunfight, officials said.
Soon after the exchange of fire, security forces rushed reinforcements to Akhal, and the cordon of the area was expanded to prevent the militants from escaping.
This is the second major gunfight reported in Kashmir in the past week. Last week, three Pakistani militants were killed in a firefight in a mountainous area on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah later said in Parliament that the militants killed in that gunfight were responsible for the April 22 terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam, where 25 tourists and a local pony rider were killed in the Baisaran meadow. The incident had drawn widespread condemnation and escalated tensions between India and Pakistan. It also led to an intensified crackdown on militancy in Kashmir.
Bashaarat Masood is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express. He has been covering Jammu and Kashmir, especially the conflict-ridden Kashmir valley, for two decades. Bashaarat joined The Indian Express after completing his Masters in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University in Kashmir. He has been writing on politics, conflict and development. Bashaarat was awarded with the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2012 for his stories on the Pathribal fake encounter. ... Read More
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