      Jammu: Five Jawans martyred, 1 injured in terrorist attack
Five Army personnel were martyred and a major was injured yesterday in an explosion triggered by terrorists in the thickly forested Kandi area of Jammu’s Rajouri district, where an operation was underway to flush out terrorists, officials said.
The operation was launched following inputs about the presence of a group of terrorists involved in an ambush on an Army truck in Bhata Dhurian of Poonch district last month, in which five security personnel made the supreme sacrifice.
               Watch Report by Ashish Kohli
Before Friday’s attack, the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri have witnessed seven major terrorist incidents since October 2021 in which 29 people, including 22 Army personnel, have been martyred.
As the anti-terrorist operation was underway, mobile internet facilities in the Rajouri area have been disconnected.
            Watch Report by Ashish Kohli
According to a statement from the Army’s Northern Command in the morning, its personnel have been conducting “relentless intelligence-based operations to flush out a group of terrorists involved in an ambush on an Army truck in the Tota Gali area of Bhata Dhurian in of Jammu’s Poonch district last month”.
“On specific information about the presence of terrorists in the Kandi Forest in the Rajouri Sector, a joint operation was launched on May 3. Around 7.30 am on Friday, a search team established contact with a group of terrorists well entrenched in a cave. The area is thickly vegetated with rocky and steep cliffs.
Officials said additional troops of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Army were inducted into the area to put it in tight cordon so that terrorists do not escape from the spot.
The forces deployed drones and sniffer dogs and troops hit a cave hideout with heavy fire of mortars and grenades, they said.
“The terrorists triggered an explosive device in retaliation,” it said.
In the morning, two Army men belonging to the Special Forces were martyred and four, including the major, injured during the operation in Rajouri sector. Later in the day, three attained martyrdom in a hospital in Udhampur.
“There is a likelihood of casualties in the terrorist group and the operation is in progress,” it said.
The martyrs were identified as lance naik Ruchin Singh Rawat from Gairsain in Uttarakhand, paratrooper Siddhant Chettri from Darjeeling in West Bengal, Naik Arvind Kumar from Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh, Havildar Neelam Singh from Akhnoor, Jammu and paratrooper Pramod Negi from Sirmaur in Himachal Pradesh.
Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Mukesh Singh rushed to the spot and reviewed the security setup, they said.
The security forces have been engaged in a massive combing operation for the past 15 days in the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch districts. The operations started after the attack on Army vehicle in Bhatta Dhurian in which five soldiers made supreme sacrifice and another was injured on April 20.
More than 250 people were detained for questioning during combing operations. Six overground workers who extended full support to terrorists were arrested, they said.
