2 militants killed in Shopian encounter

Srinagar : A second terrorist has been killed during an encounter between terrorists and security forces in South Kashmir’s Shopian district, officials said on Monday.”One more unidentified terrorist killed in Shopian encounter at Rawalpora. Number of terrorists killed in encounter is two. Search is going on,” police said. The first terrorist killed was from Lashkar-e-Taiba while the second was affiliated to Jaish-e-Muhammad.The LeT militant was identified as Jahangir Ahmad Wani from Rakh Narapora in Shopian.The encounter which entered its third day began on Saturday following specific inputs regarding militant presence. A joint cordon and search operation was launched by the police, 34-RR soldiers and CRPF troopers.Police said during the search operation, as the presence of terrorists got ascertained they were given opportunity to surrender, however, they fired indiscriminately upon the joint search party, which retaliated leading to an encounter.Due to darkness the operation was suspended, however, the cordon remained intact throughout night.On Sunday morning, repeated announcements were again made for the hiding terrorists to surrender but the militants again fired on the joint search party which was retaliated.”Arms and ammunition including US-made M4 Carbine rifle and other incriminating materials have been recovered from the site of the encounter so far. All things recovered have been taken into case records for further probe his complicity in other terror crimes,” the police said.”During the encounter, three houses caught fire. A group of miscreants even tried to disrupt the security forces’ operation and created law and order problem near the gun battle site, leading to injury to some miscreants.To track other hiding terrorists, a cordon and search operation in the area was still underway.Two years back on February 14, the CRPF lost 40 troopers at Pulwama when militants rammed a bus full of security forces men with an explosive-laden car.