Kupwara: Captain, 2 soldiers killed as terrorists attack Army camp

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR: In yet another brazen suicide attack on an Army base in Jammu & Kashmir, three heavily armed terrorists killed three soldiers, including a Captain, and injured seven others after breaching the perimeter of the Panzgam camp, near Chowkibal in Kupwara district, early on Thursday.
The soldiers on guard duty at the camp, though initially taken by surprise, swung into action to “contain” the terrorists in the firefight that erupted just after 4.40am.One sentry in particular, gunner Rishi Kumar, killed two terrorists despite being hit on his bulletproof headgear. The third terrorist managed to escape in the melee, according to the Army, though intelligence sources said there could have been a fourth attacker as well.
The Pakistani-origin terrorists had probably infiltrated across the line of control some days ago and undertaken prior reconnaissance of the camp, which is spread over an area of 400x600 metres and houses over 1,200 soldiers, said an officer. In a related development, a 50-year-old man was killed and four others injured in firing by security forces later in the afternoon after angry stone-pelting villagers from Panzgam, Botapora and Thanpora gathered near the camp to demand that bodies of the terrorists be handed over to them.
The latest attack comes at a time when violent protests in the Kashmir Valley, the political assassination of a PDP leader and internal developments in Pakistan point to a season of heightened militancy. The death sentence to Indian national Kulbhushan Jadhav and the court-appointed probe into PM Nawaz Sharif over the Panama Papers point to an assertive Pakistan army keen to step up violence in J&K even as public protests, tinged with extremist ideology, make the political situation volatile.
The soldiers who died in the terror attack were identified as Captain Ayush Yadav (26), a resident of Kanpur (UP), Subedar Bhoop Singh Gujjar (46) from Malwa (Rajasthan) and Naik B V Ramanna (38) from Kancharapalem (Andhra Pradesh).
There have been at least a dozen such terror attacks on Army camps and convoys in J&K over the last one year, in which over 35 soldiers and 12 terrorists have been killed, clearly indicating the emboldened nature of militancy currently underway in the Valley. India had carried out “surgical strikes” against seven terror launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir after 19 soldiers were killed in a similar suicide attack at Uri in September last year.
With the snow in the mountain passes now melting, amid inflamed passions and stone-pelting mobs actively trying to disrupt counter-insurgency operations, officials said the Pakistan army-ISI combine was trying to push as many infiltrators as possible across the 778-km line of control. “It becomes relatively easier around this time since 30-40% of the LOC fence gets damaged due to heavy snow every winter. The assessment is that there are already over 250 active, trained and equipped terrorists in the Valley,” said a senior officer.
Defence minister Arun Jaitley said, “The indomitable courage of our forces in safeguarding the country is exemplary. We salute the martyrs for their supreme sacrifice. My thoughts and prayers are with their families. We pray for the speedy recovery of the injured.”