Rajnath Singh, Army Chief To Visit Jammu Amid Ongoing Encounter In Rajouri
Defence minister Rajnath Singh and Army chief General Manoj Pande will be visiting Jammu today to review the security situation amid the ongoing encounter between security forces and terrorists in Rajouri’s Kandi forest area, according to people familiar with the matter.
Northern army commander Lt Gen Upendra Dwivedi flew in this morning and reviewed the ongoing counter-terror operations ‘Trinetra’.
“Northern Command chief Lt Gen Dwivedi is reviewing the operational situation on the ongoing operations at Kandi in Rajouri where contact was re-established with militants,” a defence spokesperson said.
Lt Gen Dwivedi was briefed on all aspects of the operations by ground commanders, he added.
Meanwhile, one terrorist has been killed and one likely injured in a fresh exchange of fire that erupted in the forest area of Kandi in the early hours of Saturday. The contact was established with the terrorists at around 1.15am, resulting in an exchange of fire when terrorists attempted to escape the cordon. At around 5am, the cordon was readjusted and the gunbattle continued, according to Army officials.
Five soldiers lost their lives in a terror ambush in the Kandi forest area on Friday morning, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether the attack was carried out by the same group of terrorists that ambushed an army truck and killed five soldiers on April 20. Four of the soldiers killed on Friday were commandos from the 9 Para (Special Forces) while the fifth was from a Rashtriya Rifles battalion, people aware of the matter told HT.
The army identified them as Havildar Neelam Singh from Akhnoor, Naik Arvind Kumar from Palampur, Lance Naik Ruchin Singh Rawat from Gairsain in Uttarakhand, Paratrooper Siddhant Chettri from Darjeeling, and Paratrooper Pramod Negi from Sirmaur in Himachal Pradesh.
Jammu and Kashmir LG Manoj Sinha paid tribute to the five Army personnel who lost their lives in an IED explosion triggered by terrorists during an encounter in Rajouri.