Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, June 1:Army today recovered 4 bodies of militants who attempted a fidayeen attack at the Tanghdar Brigade Headquarters of Army and that of a civilian as search operation continued in the area to flush out two more militants of the group.
A defence spokesman said here that Army recovered four militant bodies from Tanghdar and a fifth unidentified body was handed over to Police. “Four AK-47 rifles and one UBGL was also recovered from the site. Operation was in progress”, he said.
Sources said that the fidayeen belonged the Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit and had infiltrated into the area a night before attempt to attack army’s Brigade Headquarter at Tanghdar.
Sources said that firing stopped last night and since then Army has been conducting mopping operation. They recovered four bodies of militants who attempted to carry out fidayeen attack at Brigade Headquarters of Army at Tanghdar yesterday morning and were challenged by an alert security guard at one of the security outposts.
The civilian who died in the gun battle has been identified as Mohammad Akhbar who was inside the house when Army trapped the militants at Bakhiya village behind Army’s Brigade Headquarters at Tanghdar.
The encounter started yesterday morning when a security guard challenged a group of militants who were approaching the Brigade headquarters for a fidayeen attack. The militants fired back and Army from 3/1 GR, 20 RR, 12 Maratha and 26 Rajput was rushed immediately to the area and operation was launched against heavily armed group of militants.
Army airlifted 40 members of elite Army Commandos of 4-Para from Kupwara to conduct the operation against these heavily armed militants.
These six fidayeen were engaged in a fierce gun battle by Army Commandos and militants took shelter in two civilian houses belonging to Muneer Sheikh, son of Mehboob Sheikh and Shakoor Sheikh, son of Ata Mohammad Sheikh outside the Brigade Headquarters. However, around 11 inmates including women and children ran away towards the forests and Army had to carefully conduct operation against these militants to prevent civilian casualties.
Two of them were holed up there and one of them was killed during the gun battle between militants and the Army and another was, however, rescued today.
Army have now cordoned off vast area and have launched massive searches for the rest of the two members of the group as Army feels that it was a six member group. However, there were no traces of the two militants.
The General Officer Commanding of Army’s 15 Corps, Lt General Subrata Saha, who rushed to the spot yesterday was closely monitoring the situation from Srinagar today. He will visit Tanghdar tomorrow to review the security grid along the LoC in Tanghdar.
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