Army major killed, 3 soldiers injured

An Army major was killed while another officer and two troopers were injured in an encounter with militants in south Kashmir yesterday, officials said.

They said the encounter took place in the Achabal area in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. The injured have been rushed to the 92 base hospital of the Army in Srinagar, they added.

Security forces launched a cordon-and-search operation in the area this morning. The search operation led to a gunfight after the militants fired on the forces, who retaliated, they added.

On Wednesday, militants killed five Indian paramilitary police in an attack on security forces deployed in a Kashmiri town.

Three paramilitaries, a local policeman and a woman bystander were wounded, and one militant was killed when the police returned fire, a senior police officer said.

The attack in Anantnag town was claimed by Al Umar Mujahideen, an Islamist militant group based in Kashmir. It was the deadliest in Indian Kashmir since February, when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a bus, killing 40 paramilitary police.