Anantnag/Rajouri: A police head constable was martyred during a terrorist attack in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday afternoon. Officials in Srinagar reported that unidentified terrorists opened fire near Lal Chowk in Anantnag around 12:30 PM, targeting security personnel deployed in the area.
The victim, identified as Head Constable Aashiq Hussain, was on security duty for the ongoing Amarnath Yatra when he sustained severe gunshot injuries during the attack. He was immediately evacuated to the Government Medical College Hospital in Anantnag, where attending doctors pronounced him dead upon arrival. Following the incident, security forces cordoned off the entire locality and launched an intensive search operation to track down the assailants. According to news agency reports, ‘The Resistance Front’ (TRF), an offshoot of the banned terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the assault via a social media post.
This target attack follows a period of relative decline in terrorist activities in the Kashmir Valley. However, security forces have recently been conducting multi-day counter-terrorism search operations in the forested sectors of the Jammu division to track down active militants. The attack also comes at a time when the annual Amarnath Yatra remains suspended since July 19 due to severe weather conditions across the union territory, where heavy rains have triggered flash floods and landslides, particularly in the Poonch and Rajouri districts.
In a separate tragedy on Wednesday, an Indian Army soldier lost his life near the Line of Control (LoC) in the Rajouri district. Identified as 27-year-old Rifleman Sukhpreet Singh, the soldier was performing operational duties at the forward Mahadev Post in the Sunderbani sector when he accidentally lost his balance on the rugged terrain and fell from a height. Police officials confirmed that he succumbed to his injuries sustained from the fall. His body was sent for a post-mortem examination before being dispatched to his home district in Punjab for final rites.
