Paratrooper Amit Kumar of the 4 Para Special Forces
In a frantic, terrifyingly close quarter fight, 5 Pakistani terrorist infiltrators were killed in the Jumgund area of north Kashmir’s Kupwara sector on Sunday, the biggest incursion attempt since the snows have begun to melt. The encounter has also become one of the most costly for the Indian Special Forces, with 5 men of the elite 4 Para (SF) killed in action.
The five men have been identified as Subedar Sanjeev Kumar and Paratrooper Bal Krishan from Himachal Pradesh, Havildar Davendra Singh and Paratrooper Amit Kumar from Uttarakhand, and Paratrooper Chhatrapal Singh from Rajasthan.
The terrorists had infiltrated across the Line of Control last week. Movement had been noticed near fence on Wednesday from drone imagery. On Saturday, two squads of the 4 Para (Special Forces) were deployed for a forward staging to the nearest battalion headquarters, and from there to Rangdoori, Guguldara and Teen Behak areas of Jumgund. They needed to chopper it in as the battalion remains cut off by winter snow.
Intermittent exchanges of fire continued from 2 locations, and then narrowed down to just one location. Tracking movements across two days, it became clear that the terrorists had been cornered into a part of Kupwara’s dense Zurhama forest, not far from the Jumgund village. Tracking footsteps in the snow, one of the 4 Para squads in the snow tragically realised too late that they were on a cornice — an overhanging mass of hardened snow at the edge of a mountain precipice. It broke under their weight and they fell into a nallah, a frozen mountain stream, right into where the terrorists were hiding. This led to a close quarter fight in the most literal sense.
In the words of an officer familiar with details, “As luck would have it, where they fell, the militants were sitting right there. This led to a firefight at virtually point blank range. I have to give it to the training standards of the SF guys. Inspite of the fall, all five terrorists were killed. The complete squad was lost.”
Two soldiers succumbed to their injuries on Sunday evening after being airlifted to Srinagar’s Army hospital. The remains of the other 3 commandos and the terrorists were found within just three meters of each other.
The 4 Para (Special Forces) is the Army unit that undertook the 2016 surgical strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in which 38 terrorists were killed.
from Livefist https://ift.tt/39Q4ktr
via Live Defense
No comments: