Jaish militant killed in Kashmir’s Pulwama 

A Jaish-e-Mohamamd (JeM) militant was killed in an encounter with security forces in Tral area of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Sunday.
 
Sources said the militant, apparently a Pakistani, was killed in the gunfight that broke our early Sunday in Dar Ganai Gund village of Aripal area of Tral, 35 kms from here. The gunfight broke out after security forces launched a cordon-and-search-operation (CASO) in the area following inputs about the presence of at militants.
 
“As the searches were going on, the militants hiding in the area fired on security forces, who retaliated triggering a gun fight.  The house in which the slain militant was trapped was blasted by security forces with explosives,” they said.
 
The latest operation comes two days after five militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
 
Army has carried out CASOs in several areas of south Kashmir in the last two days after the abduction and killing of three policemen by the militants in Shopian district on Friday. At few places, security forces were pelted with stones during door-to-door search operations.
 
The CASO was reintroduced last year by the army as a campaign against militants, nearly 15 years after the practice was abandoned. The Army had discontinued CASO following stiff opposition from the local population in 2002.
 
The CASO was a regular feature of Army’s anti-militancy operations in the 1990s. The security forces made use of “area domination and sweep” operations in the 1990’s.