Day ahead of Amarnath Yatra, two LeT terrorists killed in Kulgam encounter in J&K

The encounter site in Kulgam was 4 kilometers away from the national highway where the first batch for the Amarnath Yatra passed.

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Srinagar: Two terrorists were killed in an encounter that broke out in Jammu and Kashmir’s Nowpora Mir Bazaar area of Kulgam district. The slain terrorists belonged to the terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Jammu and Kashmir police said. “Both the killed terrorists have been identified as categorised local terrorists of proscribed terror outfit LeT. Again, an important encounter as the operation site was very close to NHW (Yatra route),” IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar said. 

An officer monitoring the operation said earlier that a joint team of Police and army launched a “cordon and search operation in Mir Bazaar on a specific input that terrorists are hiding in the area.” “As the joint team of forces approached the suspected spot, the hiding terrorists fired upon the forces, triggering off an encounter,” the officer added. Notedly, the encounter spot was just 4 kilometers away from the national highway where the first batch for the Shri Amarnath Yatra 2022 passed. 

This was the 73rd encounter in Kashmir since January this year. The security forces have killed 123 terrorists, out of which 33 were Pakistani. While 16 security personnel and 19 civilians too have lost their lives.

Meanwhile, 46 active terrorists, mostly hybrid terrorists,  and 192 terrorist supporters have also been arrested in Kashmir this year.