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Updated: Feb 24, 2019 21:04 IST

A deputy superintendent of Jammu and Kashmir police, an army soldier and three Jaish-e-Mohammed militants were killed in an encounter in Tarigam area of the state’s Kulgam district on Sunday.

Deputy superintendent of police, special operations, Aman Kumar Thakur was hit in the encounter with militants when police,army and CRPF cornered them in a cordon-and-search operation in Turigam village of Yaripora in Kulgam.

Militants opened firing on the security forces, who retaliated, triggering a gun-battle. DySP Aman Thakur and three Jaish militants were killed in the gunfight, police said.

Two Army personnel including a major were injured, according to army sources. One soldier succumbed to injuries later. Three to four militants are believed to be trapped inside a house.

As soon as the encounter started in the afternoon, locals came out of their homes around the encounter site and threw stones on security forces triggering clashes. A health official of the district said that eight persons with pellet and firearm injuries were brought to district hospital Kulgam. “Three persons with firearm injuries were referred to Srinagar hospitals,” he said.

A senior police officer pays tribute to Aman Thakur, DySP, who was killed in an encounter with militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Sunday. ( Waseem Andrabi/HT )

Aman was a 2011 batch KPS officer who was leading the operation. He had been heading the counter terrorism wing of Jammu and Kashmir Police in Kulgam district for the last one and a half years and had played an instrumental role in killing terrorists in the area, a police spokesman said.

A resident of Gogla in Doda district of the state, Aman is survived by his parents, wife Sarla Devi and 6-year-old son Arya.

Director General of Police(DGP) Dilbag Singh, IG operations CRPF Zulfiquar Hassan and deputy commissioner Srinagar Shahid Iqbal Choudhary paid homage and laid floral wreaths on the slain officer’s mortal remains at district police lines Srinagar late in the evening.

“Another brave @JmuKmrPolice officer lays down his life in the course of doing his duty to the state & the nation. Aman was a young officer with a bright future ahead of him. Gone too soon. God speed Aman. May you rest in peace young brave-heart,” tweeted former chief minister and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah.

On February 18, in a major operation against Jaish-e-Mohammad(JeM) leadership in south Kashmir, three top militants, including two Pakistanis, were killed in south Kashmir’s Pulwama which also led to the killing of four army personnel, one of them a major, and a policeman. South Kashmir deputy inspector general of Police Amit Kumar and a brigadier from Rashtriya Rifles were wounded in the encounter.

The JeM militants were killed within 100 hours of a deadly car bomb attack on a CRPF convoy in Lethpora Pulwama in which 40 CRPF personnel and a local JeM militant, who was the driver of the car, were killed on February 14.

On February 22, two militants of JeM were killed in an encounter with security forces in Sopore area of Baramulla in north Kashmir.

This year, 37 militants have been killed in various encounters with security forces across Kashmir while seven army personnel and three policemen have lost their lives in the state. Four civilians have also died in various violent incidents since the beginning of 2019.