J&K encounter: 1 more soldier, 2 terrorists die

A top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander — believed to be the mastermind behind two major terrorist attacks this year — was gunned down by security forces in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir along with his associate on Thursday, even as one more soldier lost his life, culminating a 31-hour-long joint operation which had already led to the deaths of two army Captains and two soldiers a day earlier.

- Ravi Krishnan Khajuria

The so-called LeT commander — identified as Quari, a Pakistani national — was an expert bomb-maker, a sniper, and was well-trained in gurreilla warfare, senior army officials said.

Meanwhile, one more soldier — identified as Paratrooper Sachin Laur of Nagaliya Giurola in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh — lost his life in the gunbattle on Thursday, taking the army’s toll in the incident to five, officials added.

Captain MV Pranjal from Mangalore in Karnataka, and Captain Shubham Gupta of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, both from the 63 Rashtriya Rifles, were killed in a fierce gunbattle on Wednesday along with Havaldar Abdul Majid of 9 Para (Special Forces) from Ajote in Poonch, Lance Naik Sanjay Bisht of Halli Padli in Nainital of Uttarakhand.

The two injured army personnel — a major and a jawan — are admitted at the Army’s Command Hospital in Udhampur, the officials added.

A gunfight erupted on Wednesday after joint operations were launched in the Kalakote area of the dense Gulabgarh forest in Rajouri on Sunday based on specific inputs.

“A top LeT commander identified as Quari, the mastermind behind Dhangri and Kandi terror attacks, along with his associate was killed in Baajimal-Kalakote area on Thursday during an encounter with the security forces... He was active in Rajouri-Poonch along with his group in the past year,” said a spokesperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

The January 1-2 Dhangri attack had left seven civillians dead. On May 5, five soldiers were killed in an attack during an encounter inside Kandi forest in Rajouri.