T hree CRPF personnel were killed and two others injured when militants opened fire on them at a checkpoint in Kupwara on Monday, a day after five security personnel lost their lives during an encounter in the district.
A teenaged civilian was also killed in the exchange of fire between the security forces and the ultras on Monday, officials said.
The militants opened fire on a naka party of the Central Reserve Police Force at Wangam-Qaziabad in Kralgund area of the district, they said.
They said three CRPF jawans were killed on the spot.
A brief shootout ensued as the CRPF personnel opened retaliatory firing, the officials said.
A 14-year-old civilian boy, identified as Mohammad Hazim Bhat, was also found dead at the scene of the incident.
The area has been cordoned off and additional forces rushed there to track down the assailants, the officials said.
Meanwhile, a CISF jawan was also injured in a grenade attack on a security forces’ camp at Nowgam area of Srinagar on Monday, officials said.
Militants hurled a grenade at the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) camp guarding a power installation at Wagoora area under Nowgam police station area, the officials said.
The Kupwara attack comes less than 48 hours after a colonel, a major and three other security forces personnel were killed in an encounter with terrorists in north Kashmir’s Handwara, in the biggest loss to the Army which lost officers of such seniority in an anti-terror operation after a gap of five years.
The encounter in Handwara in Kupwara district claimed the lives of Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh and Lance Naik Dinesh, all from the Brigade of the Guards regiment, and at present part of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles and deployed to counter terrorism in the hinterland.
A Jammu and Kashmir Police Sub-Inspector, Sageer Ahmad Pathan alias Qazi, also fell victim to the bullets of terrorists. Earlier his name was given by police as Shakeel Qazi.
Giving details of the encounter at a village in Rajwar forests, officials said the two holed-up terrorists, who were eliminated in the encounter, included commander of banned Lashkar-e-Taiba Haider, a Pakistani national who has been active in the north Kashmir area. The identity of the other was yet to be ascertained.
They had held some civilians hostage, the officials said.