Arnia encounter ends; 5 civilians among 12 dead
Source: The Sangai Express / Courtesy : The Hindu

Jammu, November 28 2014 : The encounter in Arnia sector of Jammu region close to the Indo-Pak border ended on Friday morning after the fourth and last militant was gunned down by security forces during the terror attack on an Army patrol that in all left 12 people dead including five civilians and three army personnel.

"The encounter has ended and boys did a good job by preventing the militants from striking anywhere," Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police K Rajendra said in Jammu.

"In all, we have lost three Army personnel and five civilians.

All the four militants have been killed," he said, after the end of the encounter this morning which lasted over 24 hours following the fidayeen attack.

On Thursday, it was stated that four militants were killed and one more was still holed up in an army bunker which came under attack.

Officials said on Friday that there was some confusion in establishing the identity of one the dead on Thursday.

The operation to neutralise the militants began on Thursday morning and went on throughout the day but was suspended during the night.

An Army official said that security forces, who had launched a cordon and search operation at the site of encounter in Arnia this morning to retrieve bodies of the civilians, came under fire from a militant holed up in a bunker, triggering fresh exchanges in which he was killed.

Piecing together the events that led to the attack, sources in the security establishment said all the four terrorists had entered India from across the Indo�Pak border during the intervening night of November 26 and 27 and were hiding behind a culvert when they were spotted by Territorial Army personnel.

A fierce gunbattle then ensued and the terrorists who were in combat fatigues later entered two abandoned bunkers and remained holed up before three of them were neutralised.

Security officials suspected that the militants wanted to carry out a sensational strike in the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir to coincide with the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who held a poll rally in Udhampur on Friday.

The venue of the rally was about 100 km from Arnia.

On November 26, Pakistani rangers had fired on some posts in Arnia sector and by the time the troops could retaliate, the four militants are believed to have infiltrated into the State, official sources said.

BSF, which guards the International Border(IB), maintains there was no sign of infiltration.

The five civilians who died also included two people who had tried to flee from the car, in which they were travelling, when it got caught in the cross�fire between militants and security personnel.

Pakistani Rangers on Friday violated ceasefire by resorting to brief firing along the international border in Arnia, just hours after it was hit by a terror strike.

"There was a few rounds of firing from Pakistani side on our positions in Pital border outpost area in Arnia sub-sector today," a senior BSF officer said.

BSF troops, however, observed calm and did not retaliate, he said, adding, there were no reports of any casualty.

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