SRINAGAR: Two Jaish-e-Mohammad militants, including one wanted in the Pulwama suicide attack, and a soldier were killed in an encounter in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.
Also, two jawans injured in Monday’s IED blast succumbed to injuries.
Militants lobbed a grenade towards a police station in Pulwama in the afternoon but it exploded on road, injuring to six pedestrians. The injured civilians were hospitalised.
In Anantnag district, a police officer said a contingent of police, CRPF and Army launched an operation at Marhama village on late Monday night after a tip-off about militants hiding there."The militants fired from AK-47 rifles and lobbed grenades towards security personnel, who retaliated. In the ensuing gunfight, which continued for five hours, two Jaish militants and a soldier were killed," the officer said.
The slain militants were identified as Sajad Ahmad Bhat and Tawseef Ahmad Bhat, both locals.
"The van used in the suicide bombing was owned by Sajad, who a few days after the incident had joined Jaish," the police officer said. Sajad was had evaded security forces in south Kashmir. "Today his luck ran out."
The martyred soldier was identified as Anil Jaswal, 26, from Himachal Pradesh.
At Srinagar military hospital, Havaldar Amarjeet Kumar, 35, from Bihar and Naik Ajit Kumar Sahoo, 27, from Odisha succumbed to their injuries which they had sustained in the IED blast at Pulwama. The police, meanwhile, recovered the body of a youth, Nasir Ahmad Mir, from near the encounter site at Achabal in Anantnag where an Army major was killed on Monday.