5 LeT terrorists among 11 killed in ongoing Kupwara gunbattle

The army has killed five militants of Lashkar-e-Tayiba outfit in north Kashmir’s forest area during the ongoing operations launched Monday last.

A senior army officer said that the number of militants killed in the frontier Kupwara district in past 72 hours has now gone upto to eleven.

“Five LeT militants have been killed in the Hafruda forest area so far and five AK-47 rifles and other war-like stores have been recovered from the encounter site,” Lieutenant General Gurmeet Singh, general officer commanding of the army’s Srinagar-based Chinar corps, told a news conference in Srinagar on Thursday evening.

“A few army soldiers were also injured in the operation”, he said, adding all of them are stable.

He said that army’s Kilo Force had launched the operation in Hafruda forest area on July 29.

The group of heavily armed militants, he said, was part of an infiltration group which had managed to reach the area. “The search operation in the area is still continuing,” he added.

The army had gunned down four infiltrating militants in the Machil sector on Tuesday, while a militant was killed and two others injured in Keran sector of Kupwara district early this week.

The officer, however, declined to give exact number of militants active in Kashmir Valley. “It may not be proper for me to give exact number of militants,” the corps commander said.

Image: Army personnel walk towards the sight of a gunbattle in Kashmir

Photograph: Fayaz Kabli/Reuters