Terrorists attack Army patrol party in south Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Terrorists attacked an Army patrol leaving a civilian dead and three personnel injured during a massive search and combing operation involving 4,000 troops, initiated on Thursday by the security forces in South Kashmir.

Security forces, comprising Army, police and CRPF personnel, marched into more than a dozen villages in Shopian district, about 55 km from here, for ‘Operation Clean Up’ on Thursday morning, while helicopters and drones hovered over the area.

The operation, launched after a spate of terrorist attacks in the region, was perhaps the biggest in more than a decade in the Kashmir Valley, an Army official said on the condition of anonymity.

After a 12-hour dawn-to-dusk operation, the terrorists struck when Army troops were carrying out a “reverse sweep” of Chowdari Gund and Kellar area of Shopian on Thursday evening, government sources said.

Reverse sweep is a term used by Army in which they carry out a surprise check of a location after having combed it earlier in the day. They said the terrorists had laid an ambush and fired indiscriminately when the troops approached the village again.

Three jawans and a civilian, who was passing by, were injured. The civilian later succumbed to injuries. The troops asked all villagers to assemble in a common area.

“We do not wish to have any civilian casualty and the measure was therefore required,” said a senior Army official.

With PTI inputs