Two militants were killed in the Balakote sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district in a night-long operation on Saturday. The troops noticed some suspicious movement along the LoC in Balakote sector after which some speculative shots were fired by them. A massive search operation was also launched in the area after which contact with the militants was established.
"The operations to nab terrorists involved in the Dhangri attack continue by the security forces in Rajouri and Poonch Districts... On 07 Jan 2022, around 19:45 hours, the alert troops of Indian Army deployed on the border fence in Balakot (District Poonch), observed suspicious movement ahead of the border fence and subsequently neutralised two terrorists. The area has been cordoned off and the operation is in progress," the Indian army said in its official statement.
Meanwhile, the death toll in the incident has risen to 7 after one more civilian succumbed to injuries in the terror attacks in Dhangri. While four people were killed and six others injured in the terrorist firing on January 1, two more people were killed and nine others injured in a powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast in the village the next morning. The IED was planted by terrorists before fleeing the village on January 1.
172 terrorists gunned down by security forces in J&K in 2022
172 terrorists were killed in over 90 operations in the Kashmir Valley in the year 2022. Among those killed, 42 were foreign terrorists, mostly belonging to Pakistan. “During the year 2022, total of 93 successful encounters took place in Kashmir in which 172 terrorists, including 42 foreign terrorists, were neutralized. Maximum terrorists neutralized were from Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)/The Resistant Front (TRF) (108) outfit followed by JeM (35), HM (22), Al-Badr (4) and AGuH (3) outfits,” said Vijay Kumar, ADGP, Kashmir Police.
The Kashmir Police also pointed out that there was a decline in the number of youths joining the terror outfits in the valley. According to data, there is a decline of around 37 per cent in recruitment in terror organizations, the ADGP said in a briefing last year.
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