1 Air Force personnel killed, 4 injured as convoy attacked by terrorists in Poonch

The injured personnel were evacuated to Udhampur for treatment on IAF choppers, where one of them succumbed. An IAF detachment is collocated with the 37 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) in the Mendhar region.

In a statement, the IAF said, “In the gunfight with terrorists, the Air Warriors fought back by returning fire. In the process, five IAF personnel received bullet injuries, and were evacuated to the nearest military hospital for immediate medical attention. One Air Warrior succumbed to his injuries later. Further operations are on by the local security forces.”

According to sources, a search and cordon operation was underway and special forces of the Army along with 37 RR and other units in the vicinity were involved.

Sources said combing and search operations had been going on in the area between Mendhar and Surankote for the past few days following reports of militant movement. During the searches, militants opened fire on a vehicle carrying the IAF personnel, who retaliated, sources said.

One of the trucks in the convoy bore the major brunt of the attack, with several bullets piercing its front and side windscreen in the firing by the terrorists, who were armed with AK assault rifles and are believed to have fled into the nearby dense forests, officials told PTI.

Poonch district is part of the Anantnag-Rajouri parliamentary constituency which is going to polls on May 25.

This is the third militant attack in Pir Panjal region, spread over Rajouri and Poonch districts, in the last two weeks. A 40-year-old villager was killed after militants opened fire on him near Shahdra Sharief area of Thanamandi on April 22. The man, Mohammad Raziq of Kunda Top, was the brother of a Territorial Army soldier. On April 28, a village defence guard, Mohd Sharief, was killed in Basantgarh area of Udhampur.
On December 21, four soldiers were killed in a terror attack on their convoy on the Mughal Road between Dehra Ki Gali and Bufliaz in Poonch. That ambush came weeks after a major gunfight in the Dharmsal belt of Bajimaal forest in Rajouri that left five Army personnel, including two captains, dead.

In view of the upcoming parliamentary elections in the area, security forces and police have already launched cordon and search operations on a massive scale to flush out militants and their sympathisers.
A few days before the Shahdra Sharief attack, the police and security forces, in a joint operation, had apprehended a school headmaster from Hari Buddha area of Poonch and seized a Pakistan-made pistol along with ammunition as well as two Chinese grenades from his house.

With PTI inputs