Just ahead of the district polls in Jammu and Kashmir, four recently infiltrated militants were killed and two policemen injured in a gunfight at the Ban Toll Plaza near Nagrota on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway on Thursday.
“The terrorists were travelling in a truck when they were intercepted at a checkpoint around 5 a.m. The truck driver managed to flee as the infiltrators opened heavy fire. All the four terrorists, likely from the Jaish-e-Muhammad, were killed in a three-hour-long gunfight,” Mukesh Singh, Inspector General of Police, Jammu, said.
The police said a large quantity of arms and ammunition, including 11 AK-47 rifles, 29 grenades and three pistols, was recovered from the encounter site.
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They said that the militants could have infiltrated through the International Border in Jammu very recently.
Mr. Singh said the identity and affiliation of the slain militants were being established. “Two policemen who were injured in the shootout are stable,” he said.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha visited the injured policemen at the Government Medical College in Jammu.
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“No outside forces can derail us from our mission of peace and progress in J&K”, he said.
Mr. Singh said the police were receiving inputs about a possible infiltration bid by the JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Jammu, ever since the announcement of the District Development Council (DDC) polls.
“We had kept all our teams deployed at checkpoints”, he stated.
The truck was heading to Kashmir. “They [militants] seemed to be planning a big strike in Kashmir. It is the first time in the past few years that such a large quantity of weapons have been recovered from slain militants. Pouches, mobile phones and other incriminating material were also recovered,” he added.
The operation was carried out jointly by the police, the CRPF and the Army.
It is the second such encounter at the toll plaza this year. Three militants were killed in similar circumstances on January 30 last.