SRINAGAR: A militant has been killed in the precise strike of security forces in Parhetar area of the border district of Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday, the army said.
Army’s Rising Star Corps in a post on X, said, “Acting on specific intelligence inputs, Joint Operation was launched by Army and Police on 23 January in the general area Parhetar, Kathua”.
Army said the area was cordoned off and contact was established with the militants hiding in the area.
“In a precise strike by the joint forces, 1 foreign terrorist has been eliminated,” the army said.
It said the search operation by a joint contingent of the army and police is going on in the area.
Sources said additional troops have been rushed to the area to tighten the siege and prevent militants from escaping from the area.
Earlier, on January 7 and 13, brief gunfights had taken place between militants and security forces at two places in Kathua during the search operation.
Meanwhile, despite inclement weather, troops were conducting a massive search operation in Chatroo forest area in J&K’s mountainous Kishtwar district, where three Jaish-e-Mohammad militants are trapped after security forces launched an anti-militancy operation on Monday.
A brief exchange of gunfire had taken place in the Singhpora area of Chatroo forest yesterday morning. However, after the gunfight, militants once again moved into the dense and thick forested area.
Security forces were using drones, sniffer dogs and other surveillance gadgets to track down the movement of the hiding militants.
Security forces suspect that a group of 2-3 Jaish militants, all of them Pakistanis, are hiding in the dense forest area and are using natural caves in the forest and mountainous area as their hideouts.
On Tuesday, security forces during the search operation busted a militant hideout in the Chatroo forest area.
An LPG cylinder, a gas stove, dry fruits, vegetables, basmati rice, Maggi packets, ghee and other eatables were recovered from a hideout, suggesting that militants might have been camping there for a long time.
The security forces had launched massive search operations in the Chatroo forest area on Monday after receiving inputs about the presence of JeM militants there.
As the troops were conducting searches, militants attacked the search party by hurling grenades and firing on them.
Eight army men sustained injuries in the militant attack, and one of them, Special Forces jawan Havaldar Gajendra Singh, succumbed to injuries later in the hospital.
On December 16 last year, a policeman was killed in an encounter with militants in Soan village, close to a forest area, in Udhampur district.
The security forces have launched a winter offensive in the upper reaches of Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri, Udhampur, Doda and Kishtwar districts of the Jammu region after the onset of winter to track down the militants in the dense forest area.
In the last few years, many militant attacks and encounters have taken place in the upper reaches and forest areas of the Jammu region, in which many security personnel and militants have been killed.