KO Photo: Abid Bhat
Srinagar: Unidentified car-borne militants on Thursday shot dead two soldiers of army’s Quick Reaction Team (QRT) in an audacious attack in Srinagar outskirts before fleeing with a service rifle of a fallen army man.
Around 1:10 pm, a group of three militants traveling in a Maruti car fired indiscriminately at army party near Sharifabad HMT resulting in injuries to two soldiers, a police spokesperson said. He siad that the injured soldiers Sepoys Ratan and Deshmukh of Territorial Army’s 163 and 101 Battalions were removed to the hospital for treatment. However, both of them succumbed to their injuries.
The police spokesperson further said that the militants carried out the broad-day light attack taking undue advantage of the crowded place. He said the army personnel exercised maximum restraint to avoid any civilian causalities and collateral damage.
Soon after the attack, reinforcements of army and special operations group (SOG) of police reached the shooutout spot and launched a search operation to nab the attackers, reports said. However, during the search operation that continued for several hours, no arrests were made.
Meanwhile, Police have registered a case in this regard under relevant sections of law.
“ Investigation is in progress and officers continue to work to establish the full circumstances of this crime,” the police spokesperson said.
A local news agency GNS quoted sources as saying that the decamped with a service rifle of a soldier after opening fire upon them.
Analysing CCTV Footage To Identify Attackers: IGP
Inspector General of Police Kashmir Vijay Kumar said on Thursday that the police was analysing CCTV footage of the HMT shootout to identify the attackers, who killed two soldiers in an ambush.
The militants opened fire on the security forces near Sharifabad HMT, resulting in injuries to two army personnel. The injured soldiers were rushed to a military facility in the nearby Shariefabad camp where they succumbed.
“Three militants travelling in a car fired indiscriminately at the army men, leaving two of them seriously wounded. Both the injured soldiers have succumbed, Kumar told reporters near the site of the incident.
The IGP Kashmir said security forces are now chasing the vehicle which was used in the attack.
It seems the attack was carried out either by Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) or Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) outfit, he said.
There is movement of LeT and Jaish here and we will identify the group behind the attack by evening. Among the three, two could be FTs (foreign militants) from Pakistan and one local. We are analysing the CCTV footage, he said.
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