Five Indian soldiers martyred in a surprise attack on the patrol party in Dera Ki Gali area of Poonch sector

Terrorists carving out hideouts in Pir Panjal forests en route Kashmir valley - massive manhunt on

October 12, 2021

Five Indian army personnel killed during operations in Poonch sector

A Junior Commissioner Officer (JCO) of the Indian army along with four jawans were martyred after they were ambushed by a group of heavily armed terrorists at village Chamrer in Surankote tehsil of Poonch district early Monday morning.

Initial assessments made by the Indian army revealed there could be two small groups of terrorists hiding in the area who had laid a trap for the patrol party of the Indian army carrying out search operations in the area on the basis of an intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in the area.

It could not be immediately confirmed whether the terrorists belonged to a fresh group of infiltrators or were already camping in the area en route to Kashmir valley.

It is after a long time the Indian army has suffered huge losses in one single counter-infiltration operation along the line of control.

Earlier, on August 6, 2013, five Army jawans of 21 Bihar Regiment were martyred in an attack by the Border Action Team (BAT) of Pakistan at Chakkan-Da-Bagh in Poonch district.

It is one of the major strikes inside the area of Line of Control after an agreement was reached between India and Pakistan to strictly adhere to the ceasefire agreement on February 25 this year.

Additional troops rushed to plug the escape routes

At present the Indian army has rushed additional reinforcements to hunt down the terrorists roaming in the area.

An area of around 7-10 km has been cordoned off and massive searches were conducted to track down their footprints in the thickly forested area of Dera ki Gali in Surankote tehsil of Poonch.

According to Defence Spokesman Lt-Col Devender Anand “On the night of 10/11 Oct 21, a counter-terrorist operation was launched by the Indian Army and Jammu & Kashmir Police in the area of Shahdara, near the boundary of Poonch-Rajouri districts in J&K”.

During the operation, terrorists brought down a heavy volume of fire on Army troops leading to fatal injuries to one JCO and four soldiers, he said.

Army jawans, who attained martyrdom in the encounter, have been identified as JCO Naib Subdedar Jaswinder Singh, a resident of Mana Talwandi in Kapurthala district, Naik Mandeep Singh of village Chalha Sirha in Gurdaspur district, Sepoy Gajjan Singh, a resident of Panchranda Jhaj in Ropar district, all from neighbouring Punjab State, Sepoy Saraj Singh of Akhtyarpur Bhabhi in Shahjahanpur district of Uttar Pradesh and Sepoy Vaisakh H of Odanavatta, Kudavattoor in Kollam district of Kerala.

Their bodies have been shifted to hospital and will be sent to their homes with full military honours after floral tributes.

Challenges faced by the Security Forces on Ground Zero

In the last 24 hours, the security forces were able to establish contact with the group of terrorists but on both occasions, they managed to give a slip to the security forces taking advantage of the thick foliage and undulating terrain in the area.

The frontier districts of Rajouri and Poonch have become active once again. The traditional infiltration routes in the region have been activated by the handlers to push in terrorists inside the Indian territory. Since July 2021, several encounters have taken place in the area.

In August this year, the Army had killed three terrorists at Panghai in the Thannamandi area of Rajouri district.

A JCO had attained martyrdom in the attack. One of the slain militants was from Shopian while two others were Pakistanis.

In the month of July 2021, three terrorists were killed in Sunderbani and one in the Nowshera sectors of the Rajouri district. In Sunderbani, two soldiers were killed while in Nowshera one jawan was injured. Prior to that, one terrorist was killed in Kalakote.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

PGurus is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel and stay updated with all the latest news and views

For all the latest updates, download PGurus App.