Jammu and Kashmir: Five soldiers dead, 2 injured after terrorists ambush army vehicles in Poonch

Another soldier succumbed to his injuries on Thursday night taking the death toll to five while two others were injured after terrorists ambushed two Army vehicles in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, officials said. According to officials, the vehicles came under attack at Dhatyar Morh between Dhera Ki Gali and Bufliaz under the jurisdiction of the Surankote police station around 3.45 pm. 

The People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), an offshoot of Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the ambush. Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mehbooba Mufti strongly condemned the attack. 

What had happened?

Jammu-based defence PRO Lieutenant Colonel Suneel Bartwal said a joint search operation was launched in the general area of Dhera Ki Gali in the Thanamandi-Surankote region of Poonch on Wednesday night on the basis of “hard intelligence” about the presence of terrorists.

As additional forces were moving to the site, the ultras fired upon the Army vehicles — a truck and a Maruti Gypsy. The troops swiftly responded to the attack, the defence spokesperson said. The injured have been admitted to a hospital.

Earlier, disturbing images and videos emerging from the site showed blood on the street, broken helmets of soldiers and shattered windscreens of the two Army vehicles. As the operation continues, authorities are diligently working to gather more information and do away with the threat posed by terrorists in the region.

The ambush came weeks after a major gunfight in the Dharmsal belt of the Bajimaal forest area in nearby Rajouri district that left five Army personnel, including two captains, dead last month. A top commander of the LeT, Quari, who masterminded several attacks, including the killing of 10 civilians and five Army personnel, and one of his associates were killed in the two-day-long encounter in November.

The stretch between Dhera Ki Gali and Bufliaz on the boundary of Rajouri and Poonch districts is densely forested and leads to Chamrer forest and then Bhata Dhurian forest, where five soldiers were killed in an ambush on an Army vehicle on April 20.

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