Security personnel conduct search operations to flush out terrorists in the Surankote area of Jammu's Poonch district.
Over 2.5 million voters will decide the fate of 239 candidates in the fray for 26 Jammu and Kashmir assembly seats in the second phase of the election to be held in the Union territory on Wednesday.
Additional security personnel were deployed in the Poonch district on Monday even as a search operation was ongoing in the forested terrain of Dera ki Gali, where two Army vehicles were ambushed by heavily armed terrorists from across the border last week.
According to sources, a group of armed terrorists tried to enter into Battal forward area of the Krishnagati belt but alert troops picked up their movement and immediately took action.
Here is a chronology of terror incidents in the region this year.
They said a well-coordinated joint operation by the army and police is underway in many areas, including Shahsitar, Gursai, Sanai and Sheendara Top, to neutralise the terrorists.
The women of this village in Nashik still climb into a well to fetch water for their families.
The BJP has emerged the second largest party by winning 29 constituencies in the maiden assembly polls post abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, improving its all-time high tally of 25 seats recorded in 2014 elections.
The troops were patrolling the forward area in Nowshera sector when the explosion occurred, the sources said.
Suspected terrorists fired upon a convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel in the Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir on Friday evening, prompting security forces to launch a search operation, officials said.
Five IAF personnel were injured in the attack on Saturday evening near Shahsitar and one of them later succumbed to injuries at a military hospital.
Punjab Chief Electoral Officer Sibin C on Tuesday said that Congress leader Charanjit Singh Channi terming the Poonch terror attack, in which an Indian Air Force soldier was killed, a 'poll stunt' violated the model code of conduct.
A search operation to track down the fleeing terrorists continues near the scene of the ambush, while mobile internet services remained suspended in the twin districts for the second day on Sunday, they said.
The attack took place near Shashidhar in the evening when the vehicles were moving towards Sanai Top in the district's Surankote area.
Jammu and Kashmir BJP chief Ravinder Raina, seeking re-election from Nowshera assembly constituency of Rajouri district in Jammu and Kashmir, is facing a major challenge from his former party colleague Surinder Choudhary.
A joint operation was launched by the Army and police in the Sindhara top area of the Surankote belt on Monday night which led to a firefight, they said.
This has also raised concerns over undetected infiltrations from across the Line of Control and terrorists potentially residing in the outskirts of cities and villages, they said.
The Jammu and Kashmir administration on Saturday sacked six government employees, including five policemen, for their 'deep involvement in anti-national activities', officials said.
Additional Director General of Police, Jammu, Anand Jain and senior officers of the Army and intelligence agencies visited the ambush spot in the Surankote area. The Army also conducted aerial surveillance using a helicopter, they said.
Security and defence experts have called for immediate strengthening of the security management and intelligence network along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu region, which witnessed the killing of 59 people, including 24 security personnel and 28 terrorists, in terror incidents this year.
Heavy rains lashed wide parts of Jammu and Kashmir over the past couple of days, triggering landslides at many places and raising the level of water bodies.
The manhunt for the terrorists responsible for the ambush in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, which resulted in the tragic death of five army personnel, has led to the detention of a truck driver and 50 others for questioning, officials said on Wednesday.
The three civilians were allegedly picked up by the Army for questioning in the wake of the killing of four Army jawans in an ambush by unidentified terrorists in Poonch on December 21.
An Army personnel died of a bullet injury from his own service rifle near the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, a police official said on Wednesday.
Advising security agencies for appropriate deployment in vulnerable areas in Jammu and Kashmir, Shah stressed that all due procedures should be adopted while conducting counter-terror operations.
On Monday, five Army personnel were killed and five injured when heavily armed terrorists hurled a grenade and opened indiscriminate fire on two army vehicles around 3.30 pm on the Machedi-Kindli-Malhar mountainous road near Badnota village, about 150 km from the district headquarters Kathua.
There was no traditional exchange of sweets and pleasantries between the two sides along the International Border, the officials said, attributing it to the tense situation following the recent ceasefire violations by Pakistan Rangers that left a Border Security Force jawan dead.
The BJP knows how to play with people's lives and bodies, former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said.
It was a joint operation by the army and Jammu Kashmir Police carried out on the intervening night of July 16-17 in the Krishna Ghati Sector of Poonch district, he said, adding arms and ammunition were also recovered from the site.
As part of the heightened security arrangements in view of Modi's visit, the officials said, the BSF and the police conducted a joint two-hour-long anti-tunnelling operation in the Ramgarh sector of Samba district.
Five army personnel were killed and six injured on Monday when terrorists ambushed their vehicle in the remote Machedi area of Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, officials said.
The incident occurred on Monday night when the victim, Mohammad Razaq (40), came out of a mosque in his village Kunda Top under the Thanamandi police station area. Razaq's brother, Mohammad Tahir Choudhary, is a soldier in the Territorial Army, police said.
The infiltrator was challenged by the troops guarding the Balakote sector in Mendhar sub division when he was trying to sneak into this side from across the border, the officials said.
With 19 border polling stations along the Line of Control in Rajouri and Poonch, a contingency plan has been worked out to deal with cross-border shelling though chances are negligible given the ongoing ceasefire between India and Pakistan that came into effect in February 2021, officials said.
The vehicles came under attack in the Savni area on the Rajouri-Thanamandi-Surankote road around 3.30 pm.
According to officials, 46 deaths have been recorded in terrorism-related violence since January this year in the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch and nearby Reasi district.
Besides the national capital, polling will be held Saturday in 14 seats in Uttar Pradesh, all 10 seats of Haryana, eight seats each in Bihar and West Bengal, six seats in Odisha, four seats in Jharkhand and one seat in Jammu and Kashmir. Simultaneously, polling will be held for 42 assembly constituencies in Odisha.
On Thursday, April 20, 2023, five soldiers were killed and another was seriously injured after their vehicle caught fire following a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch.
An army captain and a junior commissioned officer (JCO) were killed in an accidental grenade blast along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district, officials said on Monday.
A fresh exchange of fire took place on Thursday between terrorists and security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, where four Army personnel were killed and two others were injured in an encounter, officials said.
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