M A I N   N E W S

Fierce battle between troops, holed-up militants on
One jawan dead, 12 injured in encounter
S. P. Sharma
Tribune News Service

Kathua, September 3
Twelve persons, including nine Army and police personnel, were today wounded in an encounter with the holed-up terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) in Ghatti village of Kathua district where they had infiltrated from Pakistan yesterday afternoon. The encounter has been continuing for the past 30 hours. According to PTI, one jawan has been killed in the gunbattle.

Two members of the Village Defence Committee — Surjit Singh and Sumit Kumar — were also wounded. A police constable, Sanjeev Kumar, and an SPO, Sanjay Kumar, were wounded as they crawled and tried to take position near some bushes.

Elsewhere, four militants were killed in separate encounter in the valley.

Army jawans take up positions near a forest at Ghatti in Jammu on Wednesday during an encounter with militants. — PTI photo

The Army fired mortar shells to knock down the terrorists who had fanned out in an area of about 4 km. The seven terrorists wearing Army uniform crossed the border from Pakistan. They reportedly abducted a youth, Varinder Kumar, from Chhan Rorian village on the highway to guide them to the Ujh river on which the strategic bridge is located.

The terrorists fired indiscriminately from their hideouts in the thick jungle.

Crack commandoes were summoned this morning to eliminate the terrorists within the shortest possible time as they did not want to continue the operation for another night. Troops have been deployed in strength to track down the terrorists who have taken up positions at different locations.

The Army had to suspend the operation last night because of poor visibility and it was resumed this morning. However, the Army personnel cordoned off the village to prevent the terrorists from sneaking away in the darkness.

The efforts of the security personnel to flush out the terrorists continued for more than 30 hours as they had to take precautions of not injuring the civilians during the operation. The terrorists were firing at the security forces from different locations to divert their attention.

The Ghatti village area is considered an infiltration route for terrorists from Pakistan. The route leads to the high hills of Doda district adjoining the Chamba area of Himachal Pradesh. The place where the terrorists are trapped is about 5 km deep across the Jammu-Pathankot highway. This indicates that they had also touched the national highway which is the lifeline here.

With the terrorists targeting highways in the Kashmir valley and Army and BSF installations after the killing of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief, Gazi Baba, at Srinagar it is suspected that these terrorists might have infiltrated with the intention of sabotaging the strategic railway bridge over the Ujh.

Meanwhile, the bodies of three top terrorists of the LeT were found from the Kalakote forest of the Rajouri district today. One of them, Abu Handdani, was a battalion commander.