Three local militants affiliated with Al-Badr outfit were killed in a pre-dawn encounter with security forces in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Wednesday while a civilian was also injured in the incident.
The encounter erupted after Army’s 55-Rashtriya Rifles and J&K police launched a cordon-and-search operation (CASO) in Tiken, Pulwama, 32 km from here, during wee hours of Wednesday following ‘specific’ information about the presence of militants there, police said.
During the search operation, militants fired at the forces triggering a gun battle in which three militants were killed while a civilian was injured.
Inspector General Police (IGP), Kashmir, Vijay Kumar while confirming the death of three militants in the encounter said they were locals and affiliated with Al-Badr outfit.
Since the beginning of district development council (DDC) polls in Kashmir in the last week of November, there has been a decline in anti-militancy operations by the security forces. Today’s encounter was the first between militants and security forces in December.
A senior police officer said the focus of security agencies was to ensure violence-free polls at the moment “due to which hot-pursuit of militants has been stopped for some time.”
“However, wherever any information regarding the movement of militants is received, security forces act accordingly. The anti-militancy operations will increase as soon the DDC polls end,” he added.
This year security forces have killed 201 militants, including 30 foreigners, in 90 operations across Jammu and Kashmir. As many as 157 militants were killed in Kashmir in 2019 while the number was 257 in 2018 which was the highest in a decade.