Union Home Minister Amit Shah has cancelled his election rallies in Maharashtra and is returning to Delhi due to the volatile situation in Manipur. The home minister is likely to hold a meeting to review the situation in the northeastern state, where irate mobs have set fire to the residences of several BJP and Congress legislators. The incidents follow a series of killings and abductions by militants in the state.
Two AK-47 rifles, two Glock pistols, and a huge cache of ammunition were seized from them, he said.
Police officials said the two operations were launched on August 28 based on specific inputs by Kupwara Police a day earlier.
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.
The Centre has reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Manipur's six police station areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam.
The villagers were venting their anger after militants burnt down at least 100 abandoned houses including the residence of Sugnu Congress MLA K Ranjit at Serou in Kakching district on Saturday midnight.
Two Maoists including a woman Maoist were also arrested and one of them is an area commander of the organisation.
A protester was killed in firing during a clash between security forces and a mob vandalising properties in Manipur's Jiribam district. The incident occurred late on Sunday night when agitators were protesting the killing of women and children abducted by militants. The deceased has been identified as K Athouba, who was in his twenties. The offices of the Congress and BJP, and a house belonging to Jiribam's Independent MLA were ransacked by a group of agitators. Meanwhile, an uneasy calm prevailed in Imphal Valley, where curfew remained enforced and internet services suspended after agitators vandalised and set ablaze properties belonging to several ministers and legislators.
This was the first encounter between terrorists and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in more than three months.
The anti-terror operation was part of Indian security forces' counter-offensive Operation Asan, launched after terrorists attacked an Army convoy in the Battal area on October 28.
It sustained fatal bullet injuries on Monday while attempting to protect the troops from the terrorist assault.
The Udhampur-based northern command is committed to eliminate the scourge of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, the Army said on Tuesday, as it paid tribute to four soldiers who died in a gunfight with heavily armed terrorists in Doda district.
A police spokesman in Doda said they are moving in the upper reaches of the district especially in Dessa forest where an army captain and three soldiers were killed in a gunfight during an anti-terror operation on July 16.
A village volunteer was killed in a gunfight between two warring communities in Manipur's Kangpokpi district, officials said on Thursday.
The fighting started after the PDF attacked two military bases at Khawmawi and Rihkhawdar in Chin state near the Indian border, he said, adding that the fighting continued till Monday.
The gunfight occurred in a forest near Hidur village under Chhotebethiya police station limits, where a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxal operation, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P said.
Curfew was relaxed in three Imphal Valley districts on Tuesday and the suspension on broadband internet lifted with conditions, even as Chief Minister N Biren Singh blamed the Congress for the present crisis in Manipur and NDA MLAs called for a "mass operation" against militants responsible for the killing of six women and children. Peaceful rallies were also staged across the state, with hundreds taking to the streets with empty coffins in Churachandpur district, demanding justice for those killed in a gunfight with the security forces in Jiribam, and members of various civil society organisations bringing out a procession in Imphal West district to protest the reimposition of AFSPA in parts of the state.
The gunfight, lasting more than an hour, took place at Jaddan Bata village in the Kastigarh area around 2 am when the terrorists opened fire on a temporary camp established in a government school for the ongoing search operation, they said.
The situation remained calm but tense in Manipur's Imphal Valley, where an indefinite curfew has been imposed and internet services suspended following violent protests after the discovery of the bodies of six persons, three women and children each, allegedly abducted and killed by militants in Jiribam.
'We cannot endanger our national security by indulging in false bravado, fake narratives and high-decibel whitewashing. As a nation, we have to collectively fight the scourge of cross-border terrorism'
Nine Naxalites, including three women, were killed in an encounter with security personnel in a forest along the border of Narayanpur and Kanker districts in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, state's Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma said.
Security forces tightened their cordon around a forest area in the higher reaches of Doda district on Tuesday evening following an encounter with hiding terrorists, officials said.
The encounter took place when the troops of Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group of J&K Police launched a joint cordon and search operation at Dhari Gote Urarbagi in Desa forest belt, some 55 km from Doda town, late Monday evening, the officials said.
Two Central Reserve Police Force personnel also sustained injuries during the heavy exchange of fire that happened at Jakurador Karong in the Borobekra sub-division, they said.
Eight Naxalites and a jawan of the Special Task Force (STF) were killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district on Saturday, police said.
An Army captain lost his life while four terrorists are believed to have been killed in an ongoing operation in the higher reaches of Jammu region's Doda district on Wednesday, officials said.
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.
Security forces on Tuesday morning gunned down two terrorists holed up in a forest area near a village in the Akhnoor sector in Jammu and Kashmir, taking the number of militants killed in the 27-hour-long gunfight near the Line of Control (LoC) to three, officials said.
Three top militants of Hizbul Mujaheedin were killed in a daylong fierce gunfight with security forces in the Ramban district of Jammu and Kashmir.
The encounter broke out after the terrorists opened fire at the search party personnel, who retaliated, the officials said.
The attack took place near Shashidhar in the evening when the vehicles were moving towards Sanai Top in the district's Surankote area.
On Tuesday, July 16, 2024, four army personnel, including a captain, died after being injured in a gunfight with heavily armed terrorists in Doda district in Jammu and Kashmir.
Six Naxalites, including "deputy commander" Punem Nagesh, his wife, and another female cadre, were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on Wednesday, a police officer said.
The encounter took place in Pujari Kanker forest along the interstate border when a team of Greyhounds, Telangana's elite anti-Maoist force, was out on an operation, he said.
Security forces have killed three militants in north Kashmir's Bandipore district on Friday, even as the gunfight is still on in the thickly forested area.
A gunfight between holed up militants and security forces erupted in the central Kashmir Budgam district on Wednesday.
Drones are a new technology added recently to the weapons used in the violence between the two large ethnic groups -- Meitei and Kuki -- in the northeastern state, which left over 200 people dead since May last year.
A police spokesman said that troops of 2 Para-regiment of the Army and the police surrounded the Batnor Kooligam forest area of the frontier Kupwara district early on Thursday morning. "As the troops were scanning the forest, they came under heavy gunfire from a group of militants, triggering a fierce gunfight. The gunfight ended today afternoon, resulting in the death of the three Jaish militants, whose identities are still being established," the spokesman said.
The frequent use of these assault rifles by terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir, according to experts, is a consequence of the US Army leaving behind arms and ammunition while pulling out from Afghanistan in 2021 and is a cause of concern due to the more lethal nature of the steel bullets used.
In a separate incident, a commando of the Central Reserve Police Force's jungle warfare unit CoBRA was injured when a pressure improvised explosive device (IED), planted by Naxalites went off in the district, police said.
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