A soldier from the Indian Army was reportedly killed at the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) Rajouri district early this morning. According to officials, the soldier died as Pakistani forces “resorted to heavy cross-border shelling” at 3:30 am, violating the ongoing ceasefire in various sectors of Rajouri and Poonch.
The naib subedar has been the fourth soldier to be martyred at the LoC this month—Havaldar P Mathiazhagan was killed in Rajouri on 4 June, Naik Gurcharan Singh in Tarkundi on 10 June, and 29-year-old Lungabui Abonmei died in a Pakistan-led shelling in Poonch on 14 June.
On Sunday, a senior police official announced that four militant fighters—one of whom was a Pakistani national—were killed in J&K’s Kulgam and Srinagar districts in two separate encounters, conducted over 24 hours. The first encounter, which took place in Srinagar’s Zoonimar, eliminated three militants who were hiding in a house after a cordon and search operation was launched by two battalions of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troops and the J&K police. The three militants slain in were found to have been affiliated with terror outfits Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir and the Hizbul Mujahideen. One of them was identified as Shakoor Farooq Langoo, whose records indicate involvement in the 20 May killing of two BSF personnel in Soura.
The identification of the fourth militant, who was killed in a joint encounter by the CRPF and J&K police in Kulgam, is yet to be ascertained. Further, in an operation in Kulgam on Saturday, officials reported that two militants were killed while two others managed to escape. They were identified to be Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists, from whom AK 47 rifles, pistols, and explosives were seized. Eight militants were also killed in encounters by security forces in Shopian and Pulwama since Thursday.
In view of the operations, mobile internet services have been once again suspended in the region.
In a press conference on Friday, senior army and police officers said that in the past year and a half, more than 100 militants have been neutralized, marking the “most peaceful” times in J&K and the most successful months in terms of law and order and anti-terrorism efforts in the region. More than 50 of these terrorists were from the Hizbul Mujahideen, and 20 each were from Lashkar-e-Taiba and JeM, with other fringe elements from small outfits like Ansar Gazwatul Hind and Al-Badr, according to Director General of J&K Police, Dilbag Singh. Singh also insinuated that by conducting around half a dozen successful operations in Jammu and neutralizing a dozen terrorists there, the area is well under control.
The Pakistani army has reportedly conducted more than 1,400 ceasefire violations this year so far. Last year, 3,168 violations were recorded, and in 2018 the number was up to 1,629.
Image Source: HuffPost India
Indian Soldier Killed at LoC in Jammu & Kashmir’s Rajouri District
Indian forces have conducted several encounters to eliminate militant fighters in June.
June 22, 2020
