A representative image of army jawans in Jammu and Kashmir.
Credit: PTI Photo
An intense gun battle broke out between security forces and terrorists on Sunday afternoon in the dense forests of Keshwan in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district.
“Alert troops of the White Knight Corps, at around 1 pm today, while carrying out an intelligence-based operation in the general area of Kishtwar, have established contact with terrorists. Fire exchanged with terrorists. Operation is in progress,” the Army’s Nagrota-based White Knight Corps posted on its official X handle.
Sources said the operation was launched by the Rashtriya Rifles after receiving inputs about the presence of two to three terrorists in the Keshwan forests, which stretch between Doda and Kishtwar districts.
During the initial exchange, the terrorists managed to slip deeper into the rugged forest terrain towards the Kishtwar side. Reinforcements have been rushed to the area to block their escape routes, they added.
Sunday’s encounter comes close on the heels of a gunfight in Udhampur district late Friday evening in which an Army soldier was killed.
In November last year, a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) of the Army’s Special Forces, Naib Subedar Rakesh Kumar, was killed and three soldiers injured in a fierce encounter in the same area. Days before that, two village defence guards (VDGs) Kuldeep Kumar and Nazir of Kuntwara village were abducted and executed by terrorists.
Since 2021, Jammu region once relatively calm compared to Kashmir Valley has witnessed a sharp rise in militant violence, particularly in the Pir Panjal (Rajouri-Poonch) and Chenab Valley (Doda-Kishtwar) belts. A spate of deadly ambushes, attacks on security forces, and killings of civilians and VDGs have marked a troubling shift of militant activity into these mountainous districts.
The region’s thick forests and rugged terrain have provided militants with safe hideouts and mobility corridors, enabling them to strike and then melt away. Security officials believe many of the recent attacks have been carried out by small groups of foreign terrorists who infiltrated from across the Line of Control, with local support networks helping them survive.
The Army and police have since intensified operations, but encounters like the one on Sunday underline the persistence of militant presence in the area despite repeated crackdowns.