Srinagar: Five CRPF personnel were killed and three others injured in a strike on a busy road in Anantnag district of South Kashmir on Wednesday by two militants believed to be from Jaish-e-Mohammed.
The incident took place in the afternoon when motorcycle-borne militants fired at a CRPF patrol party at Khanabal-Pahalgham stretch, famously known as KP Road, killing one personnel on the spot and wounding a few others, officials said.
#WATCH Jammu & Kashmir: Gunshots heard at the site of Anantnag terrorist attack in which 3 CRPF personnel have lost their lives & 2 have been injured, SHO Anantnag also critically injured. 1 terrorist has been neutralized in the operation. (Visuals deferred by unspecified time) pic.twitter.com/Uspen8iC4p
— ANI (@ANI) June 12, 2019
A joint team of the bravo company of CRPF’s 116th battalion and state police were deployed for a picket duty in the area when the attack took place.
The patrolling party of the CRPF fought the militants and lost five personnel while the injured were evacuated to 92 Base hospital, they said.
Immediately additional forces, led by station house officer of Saddar police station in Anantnag, Arshad Ahmed, reached the encounter spot to face indiscriminate firing by the militants, who also hurled grenades at them.
In the ensuring gunfight, one militant was killed while another is believed to have escaped, officials said.
SHO Ahmed was also injured in the attack and has been shifted to Srinagar for treatment, they said.
Jammu & Kashmir: Injured CRPF personnel are receiving medical treatment at the government hospital in #Anantnag. pic.twitter.com/VymXc7MkVI
— ANI (@ANI) June 12, 2019
The incident has taken place five days after four militants, suspected to belong to JeM, were killed in an encounter with security forces in Pulwama district.
It also comes less than three weeks before the commencement of the annual Amaranth Yatra to the cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.
Jammu and Kashmir police had shared intelligence inputs about a possible terror strike on security forces around the general bus stand which is located on KP road.
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Though Al-Umar Mujahideen, a defunct terror group, has claimed responsibility for the strike, officials, however, said that it was a handiwork of Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Pilgrims travelling to the cave shrine have to pass through the stretch of the road where Wednesday’s attack took place. The yatra is scheduled to begin on July 1 and culminate on August 15.
A major militant attack took place on Amarnath pilgrims in July 2017 when eight of them were killed by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants who opened indiscriminate firing on their bus at Khanabal.