Srinagar, July 31 (KNO) : Three militants were killed in this year’s first infiltration bid at Gurez sector in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district while as a 35-year-old woman also lost her life in the same area due to intense shelling from Pakistani side, security officials told KNO.
They said that a health department employee also got injured in the shelling from across the LoC. A senior police officer told KNO that a woman identified as Rahimi Begum (35) wife of Abdul Ahad Bhat a resident of Dassi Bagtore and the employee of health department Manzoor Ahmad Malik sustained serious wounds after a shell landed in the residential area of Bagtore in Gurez late last evening.
“The injured woman was shifted to community health center (CHC) Dawar from where she was shifted to district hospital Bandipora where from she was shifted to SMHS Srinagar, where she succumbed,” he said. An Army officer told KNO that heavy cross border shelling started last night at LoC near Bagtore sector while the troops gave a befitting reply, resulting in heavy damage to Pakistani Army posts and casualties to Pakistani soldiers, he told KNO.
Reliable sources told KNO two other civilians also sustained injuries due to shelling adding that the firing at LoC triggered panic in Gurez while authorities to suspended mobile service in the area, they said. Local residents told KNO that the shelling started on Tuesday evening and continued intermittently for whole night. However, its intensity from both sides increased after mid-night Wednesday, they said. On Tuesday evening, the Army also claimed that they foiled the infiltration bid and three militants were killed in the operation. However, police confirmation as still awaited.
Troop guarding the LoC noticed a group of militants trying to sneak into the valley under the cover of darkness in the Gurez sector on Tuesday late evening, the army official told KNO. He said the troops fired at the heavily-armed militants who tried to escape taking advantage of the thick forest cover. “Three militants were killed in the operation,” the officer told KNO adding that this was the first infiltration attempt of the current year that has been foiled by the Army.
Meanwhile, two women including five suffered injuries due to heavy cross border shelling along line of control in Tangdhar sector in northern belt of Kashmir on Tuesday last night. A police officer said that, three more civilians were injured last night due to heavy shelling from Paksitan, however it stopped in the mid night and still there is no fresh attempt of cease fire violation from either of the side. Since late night there is a lull till now, no gunfire has erupted so far, the official said. He said that all the injured have suffered minor injures, being treated at SDH Tangdahr, while as the rest of civilian population is out of danger have moved to safer places.
Meanwhile authorities had ordered the closure of all the private com government run institutions including Government Degree College Tangdhar and have snapped data services as precautionary measure.(KNO)