Army officer was killed in action and three soldiers were injured during a gunfight with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar.

The army’s 16 Corps in a post on X said the Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) Naib Subedar Rakesh Kumar was killed in action in a joint counter-terror operation launched in Kishtwar’s Bhart Ridge on Saturday.

Naib Subedar Kumar was from the 2 Para (SF).

The anti-terror operation comes amid an intensified hunt since the killing of two village defence guards (VDGs) recently. The latest encounter broke out around 11 am when joint search parties of the army and the police intercepted terrorists in a forest, a few kilometres from the spot where the bullet-riddled bodies of VDGs Nazir Ahmad and Kuldeep Kumar were found.

A massive search operation was launched in the forests of Kuntwara and Keshwan on Thursday evening after the terrorists kidnapped and killed the VDGs.