A Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel was killed in Bandipora’s Hajin as security forces engaged a group of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants in a gunfight on Sunday.
The gunfight broke out at Mir Mohalla village when a joint team of the Army’s 13 Rashtriya Rifles, the CRPF’s 45 Battalion and the police’s SOG cordoned off the area “following specific information about the presence of two militants.”
The search party came under heavy fire from the hiding militants “who opened indiscriminate fire.” “The fire fight continued for several hours. However, the militants managed to escape from the area,” said a police official.
In the gunfight, constable Zaheer Ahmad Khan sustained fatal injuries. “Khan was shifted to a nearby hospital where the doctors declared him brought dead,” said the police.