13 armed intruders killed in 4 days along LoC, says army

SRINAGAR: One militant was killed as the Indian Army foiled an infiltration bid in Gurez sector in north Kashmir on Saturday, taking the number of deaths of infiltrators to 13 in the past four days.

While confirming Saturday’s development, an army spokesperson said one weapon was recovered from the militant. The operation is underway, the spokesperson added.

“The sinister designs of Pakistan army to push in multiple groups of armed intruders across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir continue to be defeated by proactive operations being carried out on the LoC. Relentless operations mounted by troops have successfully intercepted groups of armed intruders all along the LoC in Gurez, Machhil, Naugam and Uri Sectors, leading to the elimination of 13 armed intruders in the past 96 hours,” the army said in a statement.

Forty infiltration attempts were prevented along the Line of Control so far this year.

On Friday, the army gunned down five militants in north Kashmir’s Uri sector.

The army’s northern command said on Thursday it was tackling several infiltration bids along the LoC in north Kashmir. The army has been engaging with armed militants in four sectors — Machhil, Naugam, Gurez and Uri — in the three frontier districts of north Kashmir since Wednesday.

While three militants were killed on Thursday in Nowgam sector of Kupwara district, four more were killed in the district’s Machhil sector on Wednesday. A soldier was also killed in Nowgam.

Meanwhile, militants opened fire on two ITBP vehicles at Vessu on the Srinagar-Jammu highway on Saturday morning, missing their target and injuring a civilian in a car behind them.

The civilian, Arif of Anantnag, was on his way to work at a construction company at Banihal when the militants fired at the Indo-Tibetan Police Force (ITBP) vehicles in front of him. The fire missed the target and hit his car, injuring him in the back, police said.

Though he is stable, he was referred to the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital (SMHS) in Srinagar.

Residents said they heard gunshots soon after the morning prayers at 5am.

Twenty empty cases of AK ammunition were recovered from the spot.

It was the second militant attack on security forces in the Qazigund area of Anantnag district in a week. On June 3, two soldiers were killed and four injured in a militant ambush on an army convoy near a toll post at Qazigund on the highway.