Srinagar- The Jammu region has been shaken by a series of recent ambushes and terror attacks, particularly in the border districts of Poonch, Rajouri, Doda, and Reasi.
The Sang police post in Udhampur’s Basantgarh came under terrorist fire Wednesday evening, two days after a deadly ambush killed five soldiers in the area on Tuesday. However, the alert police officers promptly retaliated and forced the terrorists to flee, averting a major tragedy.
Three heavily armed terrorists were involved in the attack, sources said.
Basantgrah borders the Kathua district where an army convoy was ambushed on Monday. Five soldiers were killed and five others were injured in the attack, following which a massive combing operation was launched in the area by the army and the police amid heavy rain in the dense forests.
The operation, launched from Kathua, Udhampur, and Bhaderwah, led to the detention of 50 people, who are being questioned in connection with the ambush, officials said, reported news agency PTI.
A massive hunt has been launched to track down and kill the terrorists believed to be hiding in the forests, they said.
More forces were deployed in the dense forests of Udhampur, Samba, Rajouri, and Poonch districts, with fresh searches in several areas this morning.
On April 28, a village Defense guard Mohammad Sharief was killed in an encounter with terrorists in Basantgrah.
Earlier, an encounter broke out between security forces and terrorists in Doda district of Jammu & Kashmir on Tuesday, a day after terrorists killed five army personnel in an ambush in the nearby Kathua region, with President Droupadi Murmu and the Centre calling for a befitting reply to the attack.
Earlier, during the peak of terrorism, Kathua was one of the districts which remained least affected. However, from the past few years, the entire Jammu has been high on the terror radar with these attacks being reported from areas known to be free of terrorism.
The Kathua attack mirrored a similar pattern to the Bhimbher Gali-Mendhar terror incident involving an Army truck on April 21, 2023, where five soldiers lost their lives. The terrorists initiated firing on the vehicle’s wheels, followed by bursts of gunfire targeting its front and left sides.
It is the second major terror attack in Kathua. On June 11 and 12, two suspected terrorists were killed in an encounter with the security forces in Kathua and a large quantity of arms and ammunition, dry fruits, medicines, batteries, walkie talkie sets were recovered from them.
This was followed by the June 9 attack on pilgrims’ bus in Reasi, when it was returning from Shiv Khori cave temple in which nine people were killed and 33 injured in the incident. The attack was carried out on the directions of Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Abu Hamza.
The Chenab Valley comprising Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts and the Pir Panjal region comprising Rajouri and Poonch districts in Jammu have witnessed targeted attacks and infiltration from across the border in the past three years, a senior government official said.
Doda district was rocked by twin terror attacks on June 11 and 12. On June 11, six security personnel were injured when terrorists attacked a joint check post at Chattargalla, while a police personnel was injured in a gunfight with terrorists at Kota top in the Gandoh area on June 12.
On June 26, three terrorists were killed during an encounter with security forces in a forest area in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district.
Amid a spate of terror attacks in the past three days in the Jammu region, security agencies suspect that three or four groups of terrorists, some of them who are fresh infiltrators, are on the move in the Reasi, Doda and Kathua areas.
Meanwhile, the government has given a clear message that these attacks will not go unavenged and India will defeat the evil forces behind it.
The officials indicated that currently three to four groups of terrorists, mostly foreign militants, are active in the region, adding they have observed an increase in the presence of foreign militants in the Kathua-Udhampur-Doda belt and the Poonch-Rajouri-Reasi belt in recent times.
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