Five Army personnel, including a junior commissioned officer (JCO), lost their lives in a fierce gunfight with terrorists during an operation in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. The operation was launched in a village close to Dera Ki Gali in Surankote in the early hours following intelligence inputs about the presence of terrorists who had infiltrated from across the Line of Control (LoC).
A Defence spokesman said the ultras opened heavy fire on search parties resulting in critical injuries to the JCO and four other personnel. All the five soldiers succumbed to injuries at a nearby military hospital where they were shifted from the scene of the gunfight, he said. The encounter with the terrorists was going on. There has been a spurt in terrorist attacks in recent weeks in which several civilians, including a prominent Kashmiri Pandit businessman and a school teacher, were killed.
The officials said there were inputs about the presence of a group of heavily-armed terrorists in Chamrer forest after they managed to sneak in from across the LoC.
After the initial encounter, the terrorists fled to nearby Bhangai village, which falls in Rajouri district. The twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu region have witnessed a rise in infiltration attempts since June this year, resulting in the killing of nine terrorists in separate encounters. Three soldiers also laid down their lives in the previous operations.
Earlier in the day, two militants were killed and a policeman was injured during encounters in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag and Bandipora districts.
