Tribune News Service and PTISrinagar, September 28
Seventeen militants and six security personnel, including an Army Major, were among 25 persons killed as security forces foiled two major infiltration bids and intensified anti-militant drive in Jammu and Kashmir since last night, an official spokesman said today.
The police said that one Army Major, who was injured in an encounter with militants at Haanch in Doda district, succumbed to his injuries later. Two militants were killed in the encounter.
The reports said that people in different parts of the troubled Doda district fled out of their houses when the tremors rattled their houses. There was no casualty or any property loss, except that some houses suffered cracks in the Wardhwan area. The tremors lasted for about three seconds.
In the Khala Draman area of Mandi in Poonch district the security forces on receipt of information, cordoned off a militant hideout. As the security forces neared the area they came under fire which was immediately retaliated killing six rebels on the spot.
In another encounter one militant was killed near Phagla in the Surankot area of Poonch. Reports said that a group of militants was on the move when security forces spotted them. They were challenged in which one of them was killed.
One report said that six militants killed in the Khala Draman area had infiltrated into the Poonch area the other day. Three more militants were killed in the Rajouri area in an encounter with security forces.
According to the official reports when the entire Doda district was yet to recover from the tremors which hit the area this morning a powerful explosion took place at Tathri bus stand in the Kishtwar area in which five persons were wounded. Several buses were partially damaged.
The Army arrested three militants — Abdul Khaliq of Tehreek-i-Jehad-e-Islami, Abdul Khalid Dar and Mohammad Sidiq Mir — during search operations at Roshanpora, Badra-Payeen and Dardpora in frontier district of Kupwara today.
The police arrested a Harkat-ul-Ansar militant Mushtaq Ahmad Band when he forced his entry into a bat factory at Chichikot-Awantipora in Pulwama district and demanded Rs 12,000. In a joint operation, Army and police nabbed Mohammad Ashraf Khan from Binner in Baramulla yesterday.
Pakistani troops today resorted to shelling on forward Indian positions along the Line of Control in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir, official sources said here.
The unprovoked shelling from across the border started this morning but remained limited to the mountains of Kharbu, Kaksar and Chanigund — away from the civilian population, they said.
There was no loss of life or damage reported in the shelling which was still continuing, the sources added.
