Srinagar : The Army has retrieved the bodies of the two soldiers, including a junior commissioned officer (JCO), who went missing during a fierce gun battle with terrorists on Thursday evening in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch. Dead bodies of a junior commissioned officer (JCO) and a jawan were recovered on Saturday. The bodies were recovered 48 hours after the Army launched a major combing operation in the area and heavily pounded the forests where the terrorists were suspected to be hiding.
The JCO and the soldier went missing after the Army came under heavy firing from the terrorists on Thursday. “Subedar Ajay Singh and Naik Harendra Singh were killed in action during search operations being conducted by the Indian Army along with Jammu and Kashmir Police in densely forested area of Nar Khas forest in Mendhar, Poonch,” the army said in a statement.
“The terrorists are holed up and the joint forces are on the job to take the operation to the logical conclusion as per the Standard Operating Procedure,” Deputy Inspector General of Police, Rajouri-Poonch range, Vivek Gupta told reporters.
With the recovery of bodies, the Army casualties suffered during the ongoing counter terrorist operation has risen to nine – highest in a single encounter in recent times in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, DIG did not disclose the number of terrorists hiding in the forest area. “We have the number and have formed our strategy accordingly.”
A vast forest area of Mendhar has been under tight security cordon since Thursday, when riflemen Vikram Singh Negi and Yogambar Singh, both from Uttarakhand, were killed in an encounter with terrorists in the Nar Khas forest.
On October 11, five Army personnel were killed when terrorists attacked a search party in Poonch’s Surankote forest. There was an exchange of fire between the Army search parties and the fleeing terrorists in the adjoining Thanamandi forest in Rajouri the same day.
The Army has already deployed para-commandos and a helicopter was also seen hovering over the forest area to keep surveillance, the officials said. They said the traffic between Mendhar and Thanamandi along the Jammu-Rajouri highway remained suspended for the second day in the wake of the ongoing operation.
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