Two soldiers and a militant were killed in an encounter in the Chermarg area of south Kashmir’s Shopian district on Saturday morning.
Official sources identified the deceased soldiers as Santosh Yadav and Sepoy Chavan Romit Tanaji from 1 Rashtriya Rifles.
A police officer said a Lashkar-e-Toiba militant, Abdul Qayoom Dar of Laroo Kakpora in Pulwama, died in retaliatory fire.
This is the first gunfight this year that has claimed the lives of security personnel.
The police have arrested the owner of the house where the gunfight took place for allegedly misleading the forces.
A police spokesman said the operation was launched following specific inputs on the presence of militant in the village.
“During the operation, a cluster of houses were cordon off and the process of evacuating civilians was initiated. During the process, as the search party started searching the house belonging to Gowhar Ahmad Bhat, the house owner intentionally misled the search party and denied sheltering the terrorist,” the spokesman said.
“While questioning the said person (Bhat), a terrorist hiding in his house opened fire on the search party, resulting in grievous injuries to two army jawans. The fire was retaliated effectively, leading to an encounter. The injured jawans were immediately evacuated to hospital. However; both succumbed to their injuries….”
After the encounter, the police said they retrieved the body of Dar, the Lashkar militant.
“As per police records, the killed terrorist had a history of terror cases. He had worked as a terrorist’s associate before joining terror ranks. It is pertinent to mention that his house was also being used as a hideout for terrorists and in April 2020 an encounter took place there and he was subsequently booked under the PSA (Public Safety Act),” the police spokesperson said.
“After his release in August 2021, he kept on working as an associate of active terrorists. Earlier this week, the SSP Pulwama officially intimated that he (Dar) had left his house and joined the LeT. Consequently, he had been listed as a C-category terrorist,” the spokesperson added.
