Five security personnel were killed in a firefight with gunmen in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, the army and police said yesterday, with security sources saying militants had made a “tactical shift” in attacks.
A security official, who asked not to be named, said militants had shifted operations from the mainly Muslim Kashmir valley to the Hindu-dominated southern Jammu area, where “counterinsurgency measures are not as strong”.
Kashmir’s top political official Manoj Sinha said forces would “avenge” their deaths. The Indian army’s 16 Corps said security forces had launched an operation in the Doda forest on Monday evening, some 135 kilometres southeast of the territory’s capital Srinagar, in the Jammu area.
A “heavy firefight ensued,” the army said, saying four men were killed, including a captain.
Indian army chief Upendra Dwivedi sent his “deepest condolences” to the families of the men.
A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP a police officer also died of his wounds, adding two other soldiers had been hospitalised.
