Militant Dead After Falling from a Cliff in Reasi as Ops Continue in J&K

Srinagar: The Indian Army, along with Jammu and Kashmir Police, continued its operation in the forest area of Jammu’s Reasi District, during which they claimed to have recovered a body of a suspected militant on Friday, an official said. 

The Army’s Jammu-based spokesperson said that the security forces deployed along the high ridge lines in the area near Dhakikot on August 17 night observed a “suspicious movement”. 

“One of the suspicious persons approached the deployment site and was challenged, he tried to escape. The Army troops readjusted their positions to prevent his escape. The terrorist was seen stumbling and falling down the cliff in dense jungle,” he said.  

The official added that the search was temporarily halted for the night due to inclement weather in the dense forest and later resumed along with the Village Defence Committee (VDC) members.  

“In the early morning hours, the dead body of a likely foreign terrorist was found in the jungle area. Warlike stores have also been recovered from the terrorist,” Lt Col Suneel Bartwal said in a statement. 

The security officials believed the suspected militant was injured during a gunfight in the adjoining forest where the police claimed to have killed another militant. 

On August 5, government forces said it killed a militant in the Gundha-Khawas village of Budhal area in Rajouri district and launched a search operation to track another militant believed to have escaped from the encounter site. It was one of the four incidents reported along the region's border areas earlier this month, which witnessed the killing of six unidentified militants. 

In a statement, the paramilitary Border Security Forces (BSF) claimed on Friday to have recovered arms and ammunition along the Line of Control (LoC) in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district. BSF launched the operation along with the Indian Army on specific inputs, a statement from BSF said.  

During the operation, five AK Rifles, eight AK Magazines, seven 9mm Pistols with 15 Magazines, four Hand Grenades, 415 7.62 mm AK Rounds, 115 7.62 mm AP Rounds and as many as 244 9 mm Rounds were claimed to have been recovered. An official added that the operation is ongoing. 

Incidents related to militant violence have dropped in Kashmir since the last year. However, there have been sporadic incidents of violence reported from South Kashmir. There is also an uptick in the violence in the Pir Panjal areas of Poonch and Rajouri districts – both close to the LoC. 

Over 40 militants have been reportedly killed by the security forces, many of them in the Pir Panjal. This year, the number of local actives killed by the security forces has dropped to less than a dozen compared to 130 locals killed last year. In 2022, as many as 93 encounters were reported by J&K police in Kashmir in which 172 militants, including 42 foreigners, were killed, with the majority of them, 108, belonging to the Lashkar e Toiba (LeT) and its offshoot, The Resistance Front. 

Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) conducted raids at several regional locations, including in Bathindi area in Jammu, where the enforcement agency conducted an extensive search at a residential house.