Qazi Shibli
At Around 2:45 am on 18 July, a cordon party of the Indian Army was laying cordon and search operation around the Amshipora locality of south Kashmir’s Shopian district when they came under heavy fire, Ajay Katoch, a brigadier with the Indian Army told the Media on Sunday.
The brigadier was briefing the media on the encounter that raged in the Amshipora area of Shopian in Kashmir on Saturday.
The Government Forces said that three militants had been killed during the encounter.
Soon after the encounter, at least five families, from Shopian, as confirmed by The Kashmiriyat, whose sons are active Militants were called for identification of the three slain, however, all have rejected the three being their kin.
Three families of active militants from Ramnagri Shopian, Shakoor’s family from Kundalan and one from Aligam localities of Shopian were called to identify the dead bodies, official sources told The Kashmiriyat.
Brigadier Ajay Katoch briefing about the encounter said that the Jammu Kashmir Police and CRPF reached the encounter site at 0430 Hrs, nearly two hours after the encounter had started.
“At 0530 HRS, a search party moved inside a ‘newly constructed house’, when they came under heavy fire yet again, the Army retaliated, killing three Militants.”
He also said that heavy arms and ammunition were recovered from them which was handed over to Jammu Kashmir Police as per the Standard Operating Procedure, adding, “there was no collateral damage during the encounter.”
He said that stone-throwers had gathered in large numbers, but the Jammu Kashmir Police did not allow them to move ahead. “We have controlled their movement, the region (south Kashmir) will soon be under control,” he told the media here on Sunday.
“Some militants have likely escaped from the site of the encounter, we came under fire from the AK 47s,” he said. However, officials said only pistols have been recovered from the slain “militants.”
Meanwhile, Sources told The Kashmiriyat that the three have been buried in a graveyard in north Kashmir.