Srinagar, Sept 19: Tuesday marked the seventh day of one of Jammu and Kashmir’s longest anti-militancy operations, which has seen three officers and a soldier die, as security forces combed through the deep woodlands of Gadole in the Kashmir Valley’s Anantnag district. On Monday, two bodies were discovered in the nearby forest. One of them was Pradeep, the soldier who was murdered by terrorists last Wednesday. Officials stated that the identity of the other has not yet been determined. For the past four days, police officials have remained silent about the operation. They think there are two or three terrorists imprisoned in the forest.The operation got off on Wednesday when terrorists murdered Deputy Superintendent of Jammu and Kashmir Police Humayun Bhat, Major Ashish Dhonchak and Colonel Manpreet Singh, commanding officer of the 19 Rashtriya Rifles. On the first day of the encounter, Pradeep vanished, and it was assumed that he had been slain. Prior to the operation, officials had claimed that drone footage had revealed a burned body close to one of the terrorist hideouts that had been destroyed. The deep wooded area with multiple cave-like hideouts, where terrorists are thought to have been hiding out since Wednesday, is being surveyed by security forces using drones and helicopters.To prevent the terrorists from infiltrating civilian neighbourhoods, the security perimeter was expanded to include the nearby Posh Kreeri region on Sunday. At a late-night event on Sunday, Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha declared that the terrorists’ managers would pay a high price and that every drop of the dead security personnel’s blood would be avenged. The entire nation is in support of the jawans, we have great faith in our military, added Sinha. The operation has been under the observation of top security grid officials in Kashmir, including the director general of police (DGP) and general officer commanding (GOC) of the Army’s 15 Corps. (Agencies)
