Five CRPF men killed in terror strike at bust Anantnag road; one terrorist eliminated

In a daring broad daylight strike, two terrorists, believed to be from Jaish-e-Mohammed group, struck in a busy road in Anantnag district of South Kashmir Wednesday killing five CRPF personnel and injuring three others, officials said.

The incident took place in the afternoon when motorcycle-borne terrorists fired at a CRPF patrol party at Khanabal-Pahalgham stretch, famously known as KP Road, killing one personnel on the spot and wounding few others, they said.

A joint team of the bravo company of CRPF's 116th battalion and state police were deployed for a picket duty in the area when the attack took place.

The patrolling party of the CRPF fought the terrorists and lost its five personnel while the injured were evacuated to 92 Base hospital, they said.

Immediately additional forces, led by Station House Officer of Saddar police station in Anantnag Arshad Ahmed, reached the encounter spot but had to face indiscriminate firing from the terrorists who also hurled grenades at them.

In the ensuring gunfight, one terrorist was killed while another is believed to have escaped, the officials said.

SHO Ahmed was also injured in the attack and has been shifted to Srinagar for treatment, they said.

The attacks comes less than three weeks before the commencement of the annual Amaranth yatra to the cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas.

Jammu and Kashmir Police had shared an intelligence input about a possible terror strike on security forces around the general bus stand which is located on KP road.

Though Al-Umar Mujahideen, a defunct terror group, has claimed responsibility for the strike, officials, however, said that it was a handiwork of Jaish-e-Mohammed.

Pilgrims travelling to the cave shrine have to pass through the stretch of the road where Wednesday's attack took place. The yatra is scheduled to begin on July 1 and culminate on August 15.

A major terror attack took place on Amarnath pilgrims in July 2017 when eight of them were killed by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists who opened indiscriminate firing on their bus at Khanabal.