M A I N   N E W S

Army jawan killed in J-K gunfight
BSF guard in Pak custody after being swept away in Chenab
Majid Jahangir/Amin Masoodi/ Ravi K Khajuria
Tribune News Service

Hit by snag, motorboat capsizes 4 BSF jawans on board the motorboat were on a patrol along the border close to Chenab Observation Post in Akhnoor belt The boat was hit by a technical snag and capsized in the strong currents of Chenab. 3 jawans jumped off the boat and reached the banks safely One jawan was swept away in the swollen Chenab

Srinagar/Kupwara/Jammu, August 6
An Army soldier was killed during the ongoing counter-infiltration operation along the Line of Control (LoC) in the frontier district of Kupwara while a BSF constable, on board a motorboat, was swept away in Chenab waters to Pakistan from Akhnoor belt of Jammu district this morning.

While the exchange of fire stopped in the morning, the troops were carrying out searches to flush out militants believed to be hiding in the dense forest close to the LoC in the Tanghdar sector, about 165 km from Srinagar.

A defence official said a search operation was launched on Tuesday evening after some suspected movement was noticed near Gagadari forest, six km inside the LoC.

"The militants opened fire on the search party. In the gunfight, a soldier N K Damodar Thapa of 3/1 Gorkha died," the official said. The Army said the exchange of fire continued for almost two hours.

Senior Superintendent of Police Kupwara Abdul Jabbar said, “The exchange of fire has stopped but the cordon and search operation is still on. An Army jawan was killed in gunfight." Four militants were killed last week when they were trying to sneak into the Valley from the Keran sector of Kupwara district.

The militants have made almost 10 attempts to sneak into the Valley in the past two months from various sectors.

A BSF guard, on border patrol aboard a motorboat along the 198-km international border, was swept away in the strong currents of Chenab to Pakistan after the vessel developed a technical snag and capsized in Akhnoor belt of Jammu district this morning.

The incident happened around 11.30 am in the Pargwal sector of Akhnoor belt, 55 km north of Jammu.

The jawan has been identified as SS Yadav of the 33rd battalion of the BSF, a native of Uttar Pradesh.