By IANS
Srinagar : An army officer and two guerrillas were killed in Jammu and Kashmir Thursday after a gunfight that erupted when the troops cordoned off a house where the militants were hiding.
According to the police, security forces surrounded a house in Garoora village of Bandipore district, 48 km from here, in the morning following information about the presence of guerrillas.
“As the troops started to tighten the cordon, they came under heavy automatic gunfire from the militants,” said a police official.
A junior commissioned officer (JCO) was killed instantly. In the sustained exchange of bullets that followed, two militants were shot dead, the official added.
The incident comes a day after two army majors and nine guerrillas were killed in a 32-hour gunfight in a mountain hamlet near Tangmarg in Baramulla district.
Intelligence officers here attribute the latest spurt in violence to the fresh influx of guerrillas from across the border into the Kashmir Valley.
The new chief of the Indian Army, Gen. Deepak Kapoor, has ruled out any reduction in the number of troops deployed in Kashmir unless normalcy returns.