Five soldiers were killed on Friday in a blast during an operation against militants at Kandi forest in Rajouri. The militants, against whom the operation was launched after a specific intelligence input, are believed to be those who ambushed an Army truck killing five soldiers on April 20 in the Tota Gali area of Bhata Dhurian, Rajouri, Jammu.
Meanwhile, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) Army’s Northern Command, Lt. General Upendra Dwivedi reviewed the ongoing anti-terror operation in J&K’s Rajouri district in which one terrorist was killed on Saturday. Gunfire contact was established with the terrorists again on Saturday as firing exchanges continued between the Army and the hiding terrorists.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will visit Jammu and Kashmir and visit Rajouri accompanied by Army chief General Manoj Pande and briefed on the operation underway in Kandi forest area.
Earlier, on Friday morning, two Army men belonging to the Special Forces were killed and four injured. Later in the day, three succumbed to injuries at a Command Hospital in Udhampur.
“In the ongoing operation in Rajouri sector, three soldiers who were critically injured in the morning have unfortunately succumbed to their injuries. “The operations are still in progress,” the Army said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, Lt Col Devender Anand, spokesman of Udhampur-based northern command, in a statement, said: “Three Army columns have been conducting relentless intelligence-based operations to flush out a group of terrorists involved in an ambush on an army truck in Tota Gali area of Bhata Dhurian in Jammu region.”
The statement said after the team received specific information about the presence of terrorists in the Kandi Forest, a joint operation was launched on May 3. It said at about 7:30am on Friday, a search team established contact with a group of terrorists well entrenched in a cave. The rocky cliff area is thickly vegetated.
As per sources, militants are trapped in the area, and there is a likelihood of casualties on their side. This is the third encounter in Jammu and Kashmir in the past 72 hours.
