Two security personnel, four militants and a civilian were killed in an encounter in a village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district, reported ANI. Three other soldiers were injured in the firing.
Two of the militants belonged to the Hizbul Mujahideen, while the other two were Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters, according to Brigadier R Chakraborty, the commander of the Rashtriya Rifles’ Sector 1.
The 12-hour-long gunfight began after a joint team of local police and the Army launched a search operation on Saturday night after receiving an intelligence input. “The encounter started after militants hiding in a house opened fire,” the police control room in Kulgam said.
Four weapons were found at the spot, The Times of India reported. The injured soldiers were airlifted to the Army’s 92 base hospital in Srinagar.
Minister of State for the Prime Minister’s Office Jitendra Singh said the militants came to India from Pakistan. “It is no longer a secret that all the terrorism on Indian soil, particularly in J&K, is sponsored by Islamabad,” he said. Singh told ANI that the world was coming around to the “Modi government’s point of view” that “Pakistan must contain export of terrorism from its soil”.
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