In a almost five- hour- long encounter in Nowhatta region of Jammu and Kashmir on Monday morning, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officer and two terrorists were killed while 9 other jawans were injured.
Advertisement
The militants then entered a building, Kawoosa House, which had been a CRPF camp until 2005, and exchanged fire with troopers intermittently.
44-year-old Kumar, a Commanding Officer of the 49 battalion, died after sustaining a bullet injury on his head.
Two youth were killed and six others injured today in security forces action against stone-pelting protestors in Magam area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district, taking the death toll in the ongoing unrest in the Valley to 60.
At least, eight CRPF personnel were martyred in the terror attack on the occasion of 70th Independence Day while two terrorists were gunned down by the forces.
Kashmir has witnessed violent protests since the July 8 killing of militant leader Burhan Wani, a commander of the Pakistan-based Islamist militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, with 54 people killed and several thousand wounded in clashes with security forces.
A senior CRPF officer who had served with Kumar in the counter-insurgency grid in the north-east earlier said the officer was very “cool but daring”. Hailing originally from Bahkhtiyarpur in Patna, Bihar, he was a resident of Jamtara district in Jharkhand.
“We want the organisers and those who raised anti-India slogans to be arrested and jailed”, student organiser Prem, who uses one name, told reporters, as police dragged scores into buses and vans to break up the rally.
Advertisement
One more youth was killed in South Kashmir’s Anantnag district in a similar clash, reports said. Kumar, who was promoted as commandant only on July 12, spoke to his wife on Sunday night, which turned out to be his last call to her. Pramod Kumar was given DG’s commendation disc in 2015 and commendation certificate in 2014 for “highest operational acumen”. The CRPF said when Commandant Kumar learned about the attack in downtown Srinagar’s Nowhatta Chowk, he rushed to the spot and took charge of operations.
