Four militants, soldier killed in encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Handwara

Srinagar: Four militants and an Army jawan were killed and three other soldiers were injured in a 17-hour-long fierce gun battle in the woods of Handwara in Jammu and Kashmir’s frontier district fo Kupwara, officials said on Thursday. The injured Army jawans were airlifted to Srinagar and have been admitted in an Army hospital.

The encounter started after security forces including Army, J&K police’s counter-insurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and CRPF launched an operation to flush out militants hiding in Haphruda woods outside Sochalwari village of Handwara. The area is close to the Line of Control.

Defence spokesman Lt. Col. N.N. Joshi said the operation was launched following information about the presence of three to four militants in the woods. “Contact with terrorists was established at night and a fierce gun battle ensued which continued intermittently through the night resulting in elimination of four terrorists whose identity is being ascertained,” he said. The spokesman added that four AK-47 rifles, one UBGL and other ‘warlike stores’ including ammunition, grenades and radio sets have also been found on the slain militants.

Army also said that the injured soldiers are undergoing treatment in Army hospital in Srinagar. The encounter in Haphruda forest area broke out soon after a top militant of Lashkar-e-Islam, a splinter group of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Riyaz Ahmed Mir alias Gosho and an Army soldiers were killed and two other soldiers were injured in a 10-hour-long gun battle in Ladoora village of Rafiabad area in neighbouring Baramulla district on Wednesday.