2 JeM militants killed in Pattan tasked to target Army recruitment rally

Security forces during an encounter in Yadipora area of Pattan in Baramulla district on Friday. -Excelsior/Aabid Nabi
Security forces during an encounter in Yadipora area of Pattan in Baramulla district on Friday. -Excelsior/Aabid Nabi

nHuge cache of arms recovered

Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Sept 30: Two militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) were killed in an encounter in Pattan area of Baramulla district today and police said they were tasked to target the Army recruitment rally. Security forces also recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from Gurez sector of Bandipora.

Click here to watch video
Additional Director General of Police Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, said here that two militants of the JeM were killed in an encounter with security forces in Yadipora village of Baramulla district.
Senior Superintendent of Police Barmaulla district, Rayees Mohammad Bhat, told a news conference that the militants had come to disrupt the ongoing Army rally in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district.
Bhat said that they received an input this morning from the intelligence agencies about the presence of some militants in Yedipora village of Pattan.
“A joint team of Baramulla Police and Army launched a cordon and search operation in the area. During searches, the hiding militants from a residential house fired upon the search party, which was retaliated triggering off an encounter,” he said.
The SSP said that the encounter ensued for sometime and ultimately both the militants were killed this morning. “Both militants so far are unidentified and from their possession AKS74U rifle with three magazines and a pistol with a magazine were recovered,” he added.
He said that they had received an input that these two militants were tasked to attack the ongoing Army recruitment rally in Baramulla.
“Their mission was to fail this recruitment rally by disturbing the youth. However, we have been successful in repulsing their plan to attack the rally by killing both the militants,” he added.
In the meantime, security forces foiled militant design to deliver huge cache of weapons, ammunition, grenades and other war like stores to militants in the Valley.
An official said that based on intelligence from police and human sources of the Indian Army under aegis of 109 Infantry Brigade launched a search operation along Naushera Nard till the Line of Control in Gurez Sector of Bandipora district this week.
“After three days of search, a hideout was found along the Nallah on 29th September, 2022, very close to the Line of Control. On digging, a huge weapon cache of 7 AK rifles, 2 Chinese pistols, 13 Chinese grenades, 21 AK magazines, 4 pistol magazines, 1190 AK ammunition and 132 pistol ammunition were recovered,” the official said.
He said that the recovery of this large size of war like stores close to the Line of Control has given a major setback to the militant groups attempting to fuel violence in Kashmir valley and has prevented unrest and loss of innocent lives.
“These weapons and war like stores were likely dropped at Line of Control for being picked up by militants and anti-national elements on the Indian side and further transported to Bandipora and other areas in hinterland,” he added.