Two people shot dead in an army encounter

Srinagar, Feb 22 (UNI) Samad Mir alias Rahil a well known ground worker of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and Shaikh Alam, both aged 20 years, were shot dead by militants in the afternoon at Chak Dudipura, a village four kms away from Handwara in North Kashmir, a Defence Ministry spokesman said tonight.

The militants had presumed these two would provide information to the army about the location of the hiding militants.

As soon as the Army got information regarding the hide out of the militants they immediately sent column to cordon the area.

However, before the column could reach and cordon off the area, militants opened fire on the Army column.

In a normal cordon and search operation, Army first establishes cordon and launches operation only after evacuating the villagers.

In this particular case, this was not possible because the militants opened fire indiscriminately using grenade launchers which resulted in the brutal killing of innocent civilians.

In the exchange of fire, G H Hassan, aged 21 years, and Amir Hajjam, aged 10 years, also got injured and succumbed to their injuries while being taken to the hospital. In this operation ,two army jawans also sustained injuries and have been admitted to the army hospital.

The spokesman said taking advantage of the chaos the militants managed to escape.

UNI BAS MP VP0032