Seven LeT guerrillas, two soldiers killed in Kashmir (Fourth Lead)

SRINAGAR - Seven Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) guerrillas and two army soldiers were killed in an over 24-hour gunfight, ending Friday evening, in a forested and mountainous area of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district, police said.

A senior police officer, however, said that searches were still continuing in the sparsely populated, forested Shiekhpora area in Rafiabad, 80 km from Srinagar.

“The gunfight has ended. Seven militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) outfit were killed while two soldiers also died,” Inspector General of Police-Kashmir, Farooq Ahmad told IANS.

“Our men are still searching the area,” he added.

The gunfight was triggered late Thursday afternoon after the troops of counter- insurgency force, the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) and local police jointly surrounded the forest area on specific information about the presence of a group of heavily armed militants there.

“As the tight cordon closed in on the holed up militants, they fired indiscriminately at the security forces leading to a fierce gunfight which continued for the entire night. More reinforcements were also rushed to the area yesterday (Thursday),” police said.

The army has said that infiltration from across the border has gone up leading to several fierce gun battles in the mountainous area near the Line of Control (LoC).

The army expects it to be “a hot summer” in Kashmir following the increased infiltration bids from across the LoC.

Separatist guerrillas Tuesday ambushed a joint raiding party of the army and police in the Chattibandi village of Bandipore district, killing a major and a soldier.

Though authorities rushed heavy reinforcements to the area, the guerrillas managed to escape owing to the rough terrain and heavy rains in the area.