Srinagar, March 31 A gunfight with hiding terrorists started in J&K’s Ganderbal district on Tuesday evening as the joint security forces cordoned off a village on specific intelligence inputs, officials said.
Official sources told IANS that following specific intelligence inputs about the presence of terrorists, joint forces, including the army, J&K Police and the CRPF, cordoned off Arhama village in Ganderbal.
The sources said that as the security forces closed in on the hiding terrorists, believed to be two in number, the latter opened fire, triggering an encounter which is now going on.
"All escape routes of the terrorists have been sealed. Two terrorists are believed to be hiding in the village, and they have been engaged in a sustained gunfight," a source said.
Ganderbal district in north Kashmir has been known to be free of any terrorist presence, and Tuesday’s encounter is a matter of concern for the security forces.
On October 20, 2024, terrorists attacked a worker's camp in the Gagangir area of Ganderbal, near the Sonamarg Z-Morh tunnel construction site. Seven people, six non-local labourers and a local doctor, were killed in that terror attack, while several others were injured.
The attack targeted personnel working on the vital Z-Morh tunnel project. The attack occurred in the evening at the Gagangir area in the Ganderbal district, where workers had returned to their camp.
On April 22, 2025, LeT terrorists killed 25 civilians, including 24 tourists and a local Pony owner, in Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam.
The National Investigation Agency and police later released photographs of the suspects based on CCTV footage.
All three LeT terrorists, Pakistan nationals, involved in the October 2024 killing of seven people at the Sonamarg (Gagangir) tunnel construction site and 25 civilians on April 22, 2025, in Pahalgam, were killed by security forces during a subsequent operation on July 28, 2025. The perpetrators were eliminated in a joint mission by the Indian Army, CRPF, and J&K Police in an operation code-named "Operation Mahadev".
Security forces had confirmed that three terrorists linked to the attacks at Pahalgam and Sonamarg tunnel were killed during Operation Mahadev at the foot of the Mahadev mountain peak in Srinagar.
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