Two Indian Army soldiers were killed and two others injured in a gunfight with suspected militants in the Chatroo area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district on Friday.
The Army’s Nagrota-based White Knight Corps identified the dead as Naib Subedar Vipin Kumar and Sepoy Arvind Singh.
The Army said a joint operation with the Jammu and Kashmir Police was launched in Chatroo on Friday based on intelligence inputs.
“A contact was established and scout leading the patrol exchanged heavy volume of fire with the terrorists at 15:30 hrs,” the White Knight Corps wrote on X.
The statement said that the operation was “ongoing”. Two to three militants were reported to be hiding as of 11 pm on Friday.
Earlier in the day, a police spokesperson had said that security forces and militants exchanged fire in the Pingnal Dugadda forests, in the upper reaches of Naidgam village within the Chatroo police station’s jurisdiction, reported The Indian Express.
The violence erupted ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the neighbouring Doda district on Saturday to address an election rally. Both districts will vote on September 18 in the first phase of Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Union territory will head to the polls in three phases, with the second and third phases scheduled for September 25 and October 1. The counting of votes will take place on October 8, alongside that of the Haryana Assembly polls.
Meanwhile, about seven hours away in Baramulla district, three militants were killed in a gunfight that began after a joint team of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Army’s 29 Rashtriya Rifles and the Central Reserve Police Force began a cordon-and-search operation near Chak-e-Tapper village, reported The Hindu quoting unidentified persons.
On Wednesday, two militants, believed to be Pakistan nationals, were killed in Basantgarh area of Udhampur district.
The Jammu division of the Union territory has seen a spike in militant violence in recent months.
In the past two months, nearly a dozen people, including two Army captains and seven soldiers, have been killed in separate attacks in the higher regions of Doda, Udhampur and Kathua districts, reported The Indian Express.