The Indian Army said on Wednesday that it had apprehended three suspected infiltrators along the Line of Control (LoC), which divides the Kashmir region between India and Pakistan.
An Indian Army trooper was left injured in a shootout that took place in Poonch sector of the Jammu division, where two major militant attacks in the last few weeks have left a total of 10 Indian soldiers dead.
Jammu has reported a spike in militant attacks despite a fragile India-Pakistan ceasefire holding up since 2021. Last month, two suspected infiltrators were captured, while another was killed in a bid to cross the LoC in the Poonch region.
India insists that local and foreign militants, seeking Kashmir’s secession from the country, are backed by Pakistan.
According to Army officials, the latest incident along the LoC followed the launch of a joint operation by the Indian Army and the Jammu and Kashmir police.
Lt Col Devender Anand, a Jammu-based public relations officer, said in a statement that three of the suspected infiltrators were apprehended and that an improvised explosive device (IED) and narcotics were found on them.
“The militants were intercepted on the LoC while they were trying to cross the fence on the intervening night of May 30 and 31, 2023 by taking the advantage of bad weather and heavy rains”, Anand said in a statement.
“After tracking the movement at about 0130 hours, a well sited Indian Army ambush on challenging them was fired upon and in the retaliatory firefight some terrorists have been hit”, the statement further added.
NIA Launches Large-Scale Raids in Kashmir to Capture Militants
Meanwhile, India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) has continued raids in the union territory as part of a large-scale probe against militant outfits.
In a recent statement, the NIA said it had raided 51 locations which it said were “residential premises of “sympathizers, cadres, hybrid terrorists and Over Ground Workers (OGWs), purportedly linked with militant outfits, such as Laskhar-e-Toiba (LeT)*, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)*, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM)*, aI-Badr* and al-Qaeda*".
“The day-long raids and searches were conducted at locations in Srinagar and Budgam districts, as part of the ongoing NIA investigations into the activities of the recently formed terrorist groups, including The Resistance Front (TRF)*, United Liberation Front Jammu & Kashmir (ULFJ&K)*, Mujahideen Gazwat-ul-Hind (MGH)*, Jammu & Kashmir Freedom Fighters (JKFF)*, Kashmir Tigers* and PAFF*”, the statement read.
* terrorist groups banned in Russia and India