JAMMU: The number of police personnel killed in Thursday’s gunfight between security forces and suspected Pakistani terrorists in the forested Sufain area of Jammu’s Kathua district rose to four, as the body of another cop was spotted in the woods.
The body was sighted using a drone on Friday morning after the operation to track and eliminate a group of terrorists, believed to have recently infiltrated from across the border, resumed.
According to sources, two more terrorists have also been killed, taking the total number of gunmen neutralised in the operation to five. However, there is no official confirmation of this yet.
“Heavy firing continued for the second day as teams of J&K Police’s special operations group (SOG), along with Army and CRPF, moved this morning from different directions after a night halt to resume the ongoing anti-terrorist operation in the area,” said a source, adding that intermittent firing was going on till last report came in.
People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), an offshoot of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), has claimed responsibility for the ongoing encounter and killings of the cops.
The firefight broke out near Juthana village under Rajbagh police station area on Thursday morning, after security forces came under heavy firing during a search operation to track a group of terrorists that had managed to escape after a brief encounter near Sanyal village in Hiranagar sector on Sunday. Sufain’s forests are about 35km from Sanyal village.
Officials said it could not be confirmed if the terrorists killed in the Rajbagh area were part of the same group that was intercepted in Sanyal. DGP Nalin Prabhat and IG (Jammu zone) Bhim Sen Tuti have been overseeing the anti-terrorist operation from Kathua for the past four days, officers said.
The three cops who died on Thursday — a head constable and two constables — were part of the first SOG team to reach the spot. Five policemen, including a DSP and a para-commando, have also suffered injuries during the operation.
J&K Lt-governor Manoj Sinha and CM Omar Abdullah paid tributes to the slain policemen. “I bow to the valorous martyrs of J&K Police, who laid down their lives for our motherland. My deepest condolences to their families,” the LG said in a post on X.
Extending his condolences to the grieving families, CM Omar said in his X post: “Pride and grief intertwine as we remember Balwinder Singh Chib, Jaswant Singh and Tariq Ahmed, who laid down their lives during an anti-terror operation in Kathua.”
The security forces on Friday also launched a massive joint search operation in Reasi district of Jammu following reports of movement of suspected persons in a forest area.In another development, an IED was defused in Ramsoo area of Ramban district.
