Army and Jammu and Kashmir police on Friday foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir’s frontier district Kupwara as four unidentified militants were killed in a pre-dawn operation.
“In a joint operation, Army and Police have killed four terrorists in Kala Jungle of Machhal sector in Kupwara who were trying to infiltrate to our side from POJK (Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir),” Kashmir Zone Police tweeted.
The identity and group affiliation of the slain militants wasn’t known immediately. Army said nine AK series rifles, 14 magazines, four pistols, four hand grenades and 55 kilograms of narrcotics were recovered from the possession of the slain militants.
The encounter comes a week after a major infiltration bid at Jumgund, Keran close to the LoC in the same district was foiled by the security forces, in which five foreign terrorists were killed.
Earlier, on June 13, two more terrorists were killed in a joint operation by the Army and police in Kupwara district.
After the Keran encounter, General Officer Commanding, Vajra Division, Major General Girish Kalia, in a presser, said that despite the ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan, they have been getting a large number of intelligence inputs of likely infiltration from across the LoC in the recent past.
For more than the last three decades, infiltration attempts by militants from across the border have been on the rise due to the melting of snow in mountain passes. However, in the last few years, the infiltration attempts declined considerably due to strict vigil by security forces along the LoC.
Earlier this month BSF Inspector General of Kashmir Ashok Yadav acknowledged that the melting of snow increases the chances of infiltration of militants along the LoC ‘but security forces have upped their preparation to foil any such attempt.’