South Kashmir, anti militancy operation called off

Security forces have called off the anti militancy operation in south Kashmir's Kulgam that was launched on Wednesday evening and which left a policeman and a Pakistani militant dead, officials said on Thursday.

Three soldiers and two civilians were wounded in the gunfight.

"The operation at Pariwan village in Kulgam has been closed," a senior security officer said.

J&K Police on Thursday identified the slain militant as Babar Bhai of Jaish-e-Mohammad(JeM), who according to police was active since 2018 in Shopian and Kulgam districts.

"#KulgamEncounterUpdate: Killed JeM #terrorist identified as Babar bhai of #Pakistan, active since 2018 in the areas of Shopian-Kulgam. One AK rifle, one pistol and two grenades recovered..." a police tweet said

The gunfight erupted last evening when a joint team of Police, Army's 34 Rashtriya Rifles and 18th battalion of Central Reserve Police Force launched a cordon and a search operation at Pariwan village in Kulgam against militants.

Srinagar based defence spokesman, Col Emron Musavi said last evening an operation was launched based on "human intelligence" .

"...As the security forces were carrying out house to house searches at about 8.45 PM, while searching a house, a terrorist opened fire with AK rifle and lobbed a grenade. Since the area and house had civilians, the security forces exercised restraint to first evacuate the civilians. In the process one JKP Constable Rohit was mortally wounded, three soldiers and two civilians were also injured," the spokesman said.

The injured, including the civilians were evacuated to Army's 92 base hospital. The condition of all the injured are said to be stable.

"One of the civilian was evacuated by Army helicopter," the spokesman said.

"In subsequent surgical operation, an unidentified terrorist, most probably a Pakistani terrorist was killed. War like stores were recovered from the encounter site," he added.

This year 14 militants including top commanders of Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish have been killed in seven gunfights so far.