While the world is battling Coronavirus, our army continues to battle militants. On April 27, our army jawans took their positions near an encounter site in Lower Munda area of Qazigund located in South Kashmir’s Kulgam.
An army spokesperson form Srinagar has informed that during a search operation an army patrol team was fired upon by militants after which this operation was launched.
In two separate encounters in the past 24 hours in South Kashmir, 3 militants and 1 militant associate were killed. This encounter also saw casualties of 6 civilians and the injury of one Army Major.
The militants had taken shelter in a residential house which was damaged by explosives that were used to by the security forces to flush out the militants.
An unattended explosive that went off after the operation was called off by the security forces resulted in the injury of 6 civilians out of which 2 were minors. According to a statement released by an official, there were 2 out of the 6 who were critically injured and had to be rushed to two separate hospitals in one in Anantnag and the other in Srinagar for surgeries.
The names of the injured are: Sameer Ahmed Beigh, Mehran Ahmed Ganai, Syed Zubair Ahmed, and Khurshid Ahmed, who are all residents of Lower Munda and the others that is Akash Ayub and Abvaid Beigh are from Qazigund.
The lower Munda area in the Kulgam district of South Kashmir is regarded as the gateway of the Kashmir valley. This is crucial for connecting the rest of the country with the valley as the Jammu – Srinagar national highway passes through this area.
A Srinagar based police spokesperson has confirmed that a pistol and grenade along with the body of an unidentified terrorist associate has been recovered from Kulgam’s Chehlan- Asthal, the site of encounter of the gunfight on Sunday evening.
The army had received reports of the intentions of the terrorists to abduct and murder police personnel an exhaustive patrolling was being carried out by joint forces in Kulgam. Around 4 – 6 terrorists attacked a patrolling party in between Chehlan and Asthal village.
During a search carried out on the 27th April, or Monday morning a trail of blood leading out of the encounter area was discovered, which indicates that apart from the terrorist associate killed there could be one or more alive and injured terrorists. The army has launched a combing operation to locate the injured terrorists.
From the body of the killed terrorist associate the police recovered arms and 6 mobile SIM cards.
The Army Major who sustained bullet injuries in his legs was shifted to a hospital and his condition is said to be currently stable.
South Kashmir has seen an increase in operations in the past 10 days with 8 gunfights and the death of 10 militants.
