Kishtwar, 4 July (H.S.): A search operation by security forces to track down terrorists hiding in a forest area of Kishtwar district in Jammu and Kashmir entered the third day on Friday, with additional deployment made in the area to reinforce the cordon, officials said.

The operation follows an encounter that broke out between the terrorists and the security forces in the heavily forested Kanzal Mandu area of the Kuchal-Chatroo belt on Wednesday.

The encounter broke out when police, assisted by Army and CRPF, launched a cordon and search operation in Kuchal around 7:45 pm based on intelligence inputs about the presence of terrorists in the area.

The search has been expanded in the Chatroo forest region to track down the hiding terrorists. It is believed there are two to three of them, the officials said.

Helicopters, drones and sniffer dogs are being used in the operation and the cordon has been further reinforced with the deployment of additional troops, they said.

Wednesday’s encounter was the second in the Jammu region in the last one week. On June 26, a terrorist of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed was killed in an encounter with the security forces while three of his associates managed to escape into the forested area of the Basantgarh belt in Udhampur district.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Krishan Kumar