Five soldiers killed, five injured after militants ambush army convoy in Kathua hills

JAMMU — In yet another attack on security forces, five army personnel were killed and five injured on Monday when militants ambushed their vehicle in the remote hilly terrain of Kathua district, officials said.

Officials informed the news agency KNO that militants hurled a grenade and opened fire targeting army vehicles which were on a routine patrol on the Machedi-Kindli-Malhar road near Badnota village in Lohai Malhar, Billawar around 150 km from district headquarters Kathua. They said an army truck in which 10 soldiers were travelling was attacked at an isolated location.

“After grenades, terrorists opened indiscriminate fire on the vehicle. However, security forces retaliated but the terrorists fled into the nearby forest and took advantage of dense vegetation,” an officer engaged in the operation said, adding, “An intermittent exchange of firing occurred between the terrorists and security forces for few minutes, but it is believed the terrorists are hiding in the forest as no fresh firing is reported.”

Reinforcements have been rushed to the area to trace down and neutralise the militants, an official said, adding that a total of 10 troopers were injured and five of them later succumbed to their injuries.

This was the first such ambush in Kathua district. Earlier, during the peak of militancy, Kathua was one of the districts which remained least affected. However, from the past few years, the entire Jammu has been high on the militancy radar with these attacks being reported from areas known to be free of militancy.

This is the second major terror attack in Kathua. On June 11 and 12, two suspected militants were killed in an encounter with the security forces in Kathua and a large quantity of arms and ammunition, dry fruits, medicines, batteries, and walkie-talkie sets were recovered from them.

This was followed by the June 9 attack on pilgrims’ bus in Reasi, when it was returning from Shiv Khori cave temple in which nine people were killed and 33 injured. The attack was carried out on the directions of Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Abu Hamza.

The Chenab Valley comprising Doda, Kishtwar and Ramban districts and the Pir Panjal region comprising Rajouri and Poonch districts in Jammu have witnessed targeted attacks and infiltration from across the border in the past three years, a senior government official said.

Doda district was rocked by twin attacks on June 11 and 12. On June 11, six security personnel were injured when militants attacked a joint check post at Chattargalla, while a police personnel was injured in a gunfight with militants at Kota top in the Gandoh area on June 12. On June 26, three militants were killed during an encounter with security forces in a forest area in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district.

Amid a spate of militant attacks in the past three days in the Jammu region, security agencies suspect that three or four groups of militants, some of them fresh infiltrators, are on the move in the Reasi, Doda and Kathua areas.

A top government source said that since mid-2021, at least 30 militant attacks have occurred in the Jammu division, pointing to sustained bids to revive militancy in the region after the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated on August 5, 2019.