SRINAGAR:  Six people, including an army captain from Kerala, were killed in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday during a three-hour gun-battle between security personnel and militants.
Four guerrillas and a soldier were also killed when army troops and the special operations group (SOG) launched a search operation in Kupwara district’s Chontimarg village, 120km from here.
In the first firefight, four rebels and two soldiers were killed.
Captain R Harshan and his bodyguard were killed when security forces, acting on specific information about the presence of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) guerrillas, tried to enter the house and were fired at.
“The fighting erupted late on Monday when counter-insurgency police and army troops raided a hideout in Kupwara district,” a police spokesman said.
The area borders the Pakistani zone of the disputed Himalayan state.
He said in the initial burst of firing by the militants an army captain and a soldier were hurt.
“During the searches in the village, security forces came under fire from a group of militants hiding in a house. The house was surrounded,” said a senior police official here.
A soldier, who was injured, was evacuated to hospital.
“Reinforcements were rushed to the area and the hiding militants were engaged in a fierce gunfight,” the official said. All the four guerrillas inside were killed in the three-hour encounter.
Four AK-47 rifles and ammunition were recovered from the site.
“The injured later died in a hospital,” the spokesman said, adding four rebels were killed in the ensuing gun battle, which lasted for 10 hours.
Indian troops shot dead two more militants in the southern district of Pulwama late on Monday, police said.
The six slain rebels belonged to hardline groups Lashkar-e-Toiba and Harkat-ul-Mujahedin.
Violence has dipped in Kashmir since India and Pakistan - which both hold the region in part but claim it in full - started a peace process in January 2004.
The daily death toll has dropped from 10 in 2001 to three in 2006.
The unrest has claimed nearly 44,000 lives since militants launched their insurgency against Indian rule in 1989.
Meanwhile, Army Captain R Harshan’s home in Kerala was plunged into stunned grief. His parents and his two brothers were incoherent with the enormity of the tragedy that had struck them - so suddenly and so brutally. And just two days before he was to come home for a holiday!
Neighbours got to know about the killing in Kashmir valley’s Kupwara district earlier in the day after they heard cries from the home - the news of the death had been communicated to the family by officers from Harshan’s military unit.
According to reports, Harshan was killed in a village called Chontimarg during a search operation but not before shooting down three terrorists in their hideout.
The bachelor Harshan, who joined the army four years ago, was attached to the 2nd Battalion of Parachute Regiment (Special Forces). He studied at the Sainik School here and was an excellent sportsperson. – IANS