Jammu, Mar 28: The body of another policeman was sighted using a drone on Friday near the spot where a gunfight took place earlier in a remote forested area in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir, officials said. This is the fourth cop to be have died in the gunfight in which three terrorists are also confirmed to have been killed, officials saidHeavy firing and deafening sounds of explosions continued for the second day as police assisted by the Army and CRPF moved this morning from different directions, after a night halt to sanitise the Safiyan area, they said.
On Thursday, three suspected Pakistani terrorists of proscribed Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) outfit and an equal number of policemen were found dead after the day-long gunfight while one policeman was reported missing. Seven others, including a deputy superintendent of police, were injured in the gunbattle.
The officials said the security forces resumed the operation with the first light of the day, having the primary focus to retrieve the bodies of the deceased, finding a missing policeman and neutralising any other threat.
They said the joint security parties are moving cautiously to the targeted area as two more terrorists are believed holed up there. They were also presumed dead earlier but their bodies could not be sighted by the drones.
The operation, centred near Jakhole village in the Ghati Juthana area of Rajbagh, against the terrorists started around 8 am on Thursday amid intensified operations led by police against the ultras who had recently infiltrated from across the International Border in Hiranagar sector, the officials said.
However, it was not immediately clear whether it was the same group that had been evading an earlier cordon in Sanyal forest of Hiranagar or another batch of infiltrated terrorists.
Three terrorists were killed in the onslaught led by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and assisted by the Army and CRPF.
Adding to the tension, five police personnel, including a Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO), were reportedly trapped near the gunfight’s location, adjacent to a rivulet concealed by dense foliage.
However, the SDPO — a DSP rank officer — was evacuated in an injured condition from the scene late Thursday evening, while three of his personal security officers were found dead while another body of a policeman was sighted this morning.
Besides the SDPO, three more policemen were admitted to Kathua hospital and their condition was stated to be stable . Two army personnel were also injured in the operation.
Earlier, a group of terrorists was intercepted on Sunday evening within a ‘dhok’, a local term for an enclosure in a nursery, in Sanyal village near the International Border with Pakistan in the Hiranagar sector.