Srinagar/Anantnag, February 24: A Deputy Superintendent of J&K Police, a soldier and three militants were killed in a gunfight in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Sunday, officials said.
The gunfight erupted when forces were carrying out a search-and-cordon operation after an input about the presence of militants in the Tudigam area of Kulgam.
“As the searches were being carried militants opened indiscriminate fire wounding a DSP. The DSP, identified as Aman Thakur, later succumbed to his injuries,” an official said.
Police suspect the militants belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad.
A 2011-batch KPS officer, Thakur was heading the counter-terrorism wing of Jammu and Kashmir Police in Kulgam from last one-and-a-half-year and had played an instrumental role in killing the dreaded terrorists in the area, a police spokesman said.
Kumar, a resident of Gogla in Doda district, is survived by aged parents, wife Sarla Devi and a six-year-old son Arya.
The gunfight at Kulgam is second anti-militancy operation in south Kashmir after the deadly suicide bombing at Lethpora along Srinagar-Jammu highway which left 40 CRPF men dead.
Four days after the bombing, security forces killed three top commanders of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in a fierce gunbattle in Pinglana village of Pulwama that also left five soldiers, including a Major, dead.
