2 militants, CRPF man killed in 27-hour-long Karan Nagar gunfight

Jammu: An encounter that raged between the forces and militants in Karan Nagar area of Srinagar on Monday morning has ended with the killing of two militants and one Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) constable, police said on Tuesday.
The 27-hour-long gunfight broke out in the area after a sentry according to the police CRPF averted the ‘Fidayeen attack’ in the wee hours of Monday morning.
Swayam Prakash Pani who recently took over Inspector General of Police (IGP Kashmir Range on Monday while addressing a news conference here said that at 23 BN of CRPF located at Karan Nagar on Monday, an sentry absorbed some suspicious movement following which he challenged those individuals. “Once they were challenged, the militants reiterated from that place. That way the attack they had planned was repulsed,” he said.
He said that subsequently, a cordon and search operation was launched jointly by the CRPF and police. “During the cordon and search operation, the militants who had taken shelter in a building which was under construction opened fire upon the forces,” he said, adding that in the initial gunfight, a CRPF constable was killed.
“The operation was carried out and in the end Tuesday, two militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) were killed. The materials which we recovered that suggest that they are from LeT outfit,” he said, adding that one JKP constable had also sustained minor bullet injury during the operation. “The constable is out of danger and is being treated at SMHS hospital,” he said.
“Since the operation was in a very congested locality and lot of civilian population was around. The civilian population was immediately rescued from the area,” he said, thanking the civilians of city for cooperating with them.
“It is because of the cooperation of civilian population that the entire area was vacated,” adding that it was a clean operation as no collateral damage occurred during the operation. “Other than the place where militants were holed up, no other collateral damage has occurred during the gunfight,” he said.
Asked about the identity of the slain militants, the newly appointed IGP said that so far the identification of the militants has not been established. “We are currently ascertaining the identification of the militants,’ he added.