7 militants killed, Pak arms seized in Kashmir

SRINAGAR: Security forces gunned down seven militants in Kashmir on Thursday, including three who tried to storm an army camp in Kashmir, the second such strike

SRINAGAR: Security forces gunned down seven militants in Kashmir on Thursday, including three who tried to storm an army camp in Kashmir, the second such strike in the Valley after the Uri attack.

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Four infiltrators were killed when the army repelled three infiltration bids along the Line of Control, a signal that Pakistan has stepped up the offensive after Indian forces struck

militants preparing to sneak into India from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on September 29. Two global positioning system sets and two wireless sets with code sheets of the kind used by Lashkar-e-Taiba were recovered from militants who attacked the 30 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) camp in Kupwara, intelligence sources said.

“The terrorists fired indiscriminately on our sentry posts and on our jawans in the resting area. However, alert action by the jawans forced the militants to retreat,” colonel Rajiv Sarang, commanding officer of 30 RR, said.

After repelling the attack, security forces launched a search operation, forcing the militants into an orchard. Three militants were killed in the two-hour gunfight.

A large cache of arms, including three AK-47 rifles and grenade launchers, food and medicines bearing Pakistani markings were also recovered from them, the army said.

The army overnight beat back two infiltration bids in Naugam sector in Kupwara and one in Rampur in Uri along the LoC, the third such attempt after India’s surgical strikes.

Four bodies were recovered during the combing operations in Naugam, an army spokesperson said.

The Langate camp is not too far from the military post in Baramulla targetted by six militants on October 2 that left a Border Security Force jawan dead.

The strike came within days of the worst attack against the army in the border state when 19 soldiers were killed by suspected Pakistani militants in Uri.

India crossed the line of control, the de facto border, to avenge the strike, worsening the ties with Pakistan which says the so-called cross-LoC raid was nothing but cross-border firing.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s powerful army chief lashed out at India on Thursday, warning that any act of aggression from New Delhi would not go unpunished as tensions spiked between the two countries.

General Raheel Sharif in a televised speech said Pakistan’s armed forces will react with a “befitting response” to such a move.

“Pakistan is a responsible country and remains committed to follow the policy of friendship with all other countries based on the principles of equality and mutual respect. While doing so, the armed forces of Pakistan remain fully prepared to give the most befitting response to any kind of internal and external threat posed to our nation,” Sharif said.