A three-day operation along on the Line of Control (LoC) near Tangdhar, culminated in an ambush in a cave where the Army killed two militants. An officer and two jawans sustained injuries in the operation. The Army has so far killed 12 Pakistani militants and foiled all seven infiltration attempts along the LoC since the counter-infiltration operation began on July 22.
The newest counter-infiltration operation began in the early hours of July 22 at Tangdhar when an Army surveillance unit picked up movement near the fence at the Line of Control near Tangdhar, over 100 kilometres north of the state capital Srinagar.
Army officials said two militants walked into an ambush at a post around 14,000 feet at around 10.30 am on July 22. They breached the fence using wire-cutters using a cover of low-hanging clouds, when they ran into the Army ambush. The infiltrators hid behind rocks and fired with AK-47s and under-barrel grenade launchers with troops of the 26 Rajput Regiment.
Major Akash and Sepoy Ranjit Kumar and Sepoy Balbir Kumar were injured in the firefight and evacuated to the base hospital Srinagar. When the search operations ended on Friday at 3 pm, the Army recovered two bodies of the militants in a cave under a large boulder.
This is the third infiltration attempt foiled at Tangdhar this year. On May 25th one militant was killed while infiltrating in Tangdhar while two militants were killed in an ambush at Tangdhar sector. Tangdhar, a rugged mountainous region is one of the infiltration routes like Machchil and Naugaum, favoured by militants. “It’s a story of desperation versus determination, ” says Lieutenant General Subrata Saha, General Officer Commanding the Srinagar-based 15 Corps. “Our determination, their desperation.”
Multiple attempts to break in have failed thus far because the army says it has strengthened its counter-infiltration grid by plugging gaps along ridge lines along the traditional infiltration routes.
Source from India Defence News.
