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13 militants killed

Shujaat Bukhari

SRINAGAR: The Army has killed 13 militants in one of the longest and toughest encounters on the Harmukh range of mountains in north east Kashmir.

Helicopters were used to airlift para commandos to block the movement of militants as the battle was fought at nearly 14,000 ft, the highest on the range.

The operation to flush out bodies of two militants was still on when reports last came in on Friday.

Briefing journalists about the gun battle fought on the rocky mountains around the Chammar Sar lake in Bandipore district, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of counter insurgency ‘Kilo Force,’ Major General Y.S.S. Goudar, said that it was a difficult operation as militants were hiding in deep caves on the slippery mountains. “We had received information about the group of militants moving from Bandipore to Ganderbal district through this mountain range and we accordingly launched an operation on September 24,” he said.

Troops from various formations followed the leads but could not establish contact. “We subsequently moved two more columns from two different routes and our effort was not to allow them to slip through though they had a 10-hour lead over my troops,” said Maj. Gen. Goudar.

But they finally established contact with them in Bramsha Nar area and then “I ordered to airlift the para commandos from the Manasbal base”. “We flew in two more groups to chase them and finally surrounded them,” said the GOC. The operation was led by Captain Bala Kartik and “we engaged the militants on September 26.”

Even though the terrain was very difficult and slippery the troops managed to knock them down and on the first day four militants were killed. The firefight continued till October 1 and by that time we had killed almost all of them. “It took our troops a lot of time to reach to them until the caves collapsed,” said Maj. Gen. Goudar. The GOC said that initially it looked that all weapons were proving ineffective but at the same time “we only used small arms and grenades to smash their hideouts.”

The weapons recovered included 11 AK rifles and ammunition. Some pocket notebooks suggested they were militants from the Lashkar-e-Taiba and mostly from Pakistan.

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