Tribune News Service

Srinagar, December 29

Two soldiers of the Army’s counter-insurgency battalion were injured in a brief gunfight in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district this morning.The gunfight erupted this morning when joint teams of the Special Operations Group of the J&K Police and 13 Rashtriya Rifles Battalion cordoned off Gulshan Mohalla Shahgund at Hajin, over 30 km from Srinagar, after an input about the presence of two or three foreign militants.“As the cordon was being laid, the militants opened indiscriminate firing, injuring two Army jawans,” a police officer said. “The injured soldiers were shifted to the Army’s Srinagar base hospital, where the condition of one of them is stated to be critical.”Police sources said the forces retaliated, triggering a brief gunfight. The militants, however, managed to escape from the area. The forces later carried out searches in the area, but could not trace the militants.The sources said it was the same group of militants that had recently managed to escape from a neighbouring village in the area.This year the security forces have suffered heavy casualties. Government figures say 87 security personnel were killed in J&K, the highest since 2008. These men have been killed in militant ambushes, ceasefire violations, counter-infiltration and Border Action Team operations of the Pakistan army on the Line of Control.

Intrusion bid in Poonch, soldier wounded

• Poonch: One soldier was injured as the Army foiled an infiltration bid in the Gulpur sector of Poonch district, when three to five heavily armed terrorists tried to sneak into the state from across the border on Thursday morning. The soldier was injured in the firing by Pakistani troops, who targeted Indian forward positions to facilitate the infiltrators. “The Army soldier injured in the firing has been identified as NK Suryakant Patil of 15 Maratha Light Infantry. He has been airlifted to Command Hospital, Udhampur,” said a defence source. — OC