Poonch/Jammu, Dec 22: Security forces Friday launched a massive cordon and search operation in the forest area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district and a National Investigation Agency team also visited there, a day after five army personnel were killed and two others injured in a militant attack.
Director General of Police R R Swain and the General officer Commanding (GoC), XVI corps, Lt Gen Sandeep Jain visited Ground Zero and reviewed the situation with top army and police officers, officials said.
“Indian Army and White knight Corps salutes the bravery and supreme sacrifice of four soldiers in Surankote on yesterday while fighting the scourge of terrorism”, White Knight Corps, or XVI corps, wrote on X.
An official said aerial monitoring using helicopters is also being conducted and sniffer dogs have been pressed into service to track down the militants who ambushed two Army vehicles in the area Thursday afternoon.
“A massive cordon and search operation has begun this morning after a night cordon in area,” an officer said. The operation was still going on.
He said that additional troops have been inducted into area to track down the militants involved in the firing.
On Thursday, around 3.45 pm, the two army vehicles carrying personnel to the site of a cordon-and-search operation came under attack at a blind curve at Dhatyar Morh between Dhera Ki Gali and Bufliaz under the jurisdiction of the Surankote police station.
The officer quoted above said the Dhera Ki Gali (DKG) Road has been closed for traffic. Top officials of army and police are monitoring in the situation at the ground.
The heavily-armed militants, believed to three to four in number, initially took position on hill tops and chose a blind curve to target the army vehicles.
After the attack, they reportedly mutilated the bodies of at least two soldiers and have taken weapons of some of them, officials say. The security officials say that investigation of site is being carried out to know the pattern and use of weapons including steel core bullets in the ambush.
Security experts said on Friday the rising number of terror incidents in the Rajouri-Poonch region is concerning.
