(With inputs from Rohan Dua in Delhi)

SRINAGAR: A lone terrorist with an AK-47 rifle concealed under his traditional robe struck at a security checkpoint at Sopore in north Kashmir's Baramulla district on Saturday, killing three CRPF troopers and critically injuring two other personnel in the second attack on security forces in less than 24 hours.Head constables Chander B Bakhre and Rajeev Sharma and constable Parmar Satpal of the CRPF's 179 Battalion were part of a joint paramilitary-police team manning the temporary checkpoint near the Ahad Baba crossing in Sopore town when the pheran-clad assailant walked towards them, sprayed a volley of gunfire and scooted.All three were fatally injured in the shooting while two others – head constable Biswajeet Ghosh and constable Javed Ahmad – suffered multiple injuries. "The terrorist managed to flee because the other security personnel couldn't retaliate instantly for fear of harming some civilians who were at the spot," an official said.A fledgling outfit called The Resistance Force (TRF), a.k.a. JK Fighters, claimed responsibility for the attack."The outfit, which owes allegiance to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and two other Pakistan-based groups, first made an appearance in the Valley in September last year," a top intelligence official said. "Their J&K commander Anas Mustafa, who hails from Kakapura in Pulwama , reports to a Pakistan-based chief who uses 'Andrew Jones'' as his alias on Telegram."His WhatsApp ID on the same number bears the name ''Khan Bilal'', the official said."TRF's first appearance was claiming responsibility for a grenade attack on CRPF's 38 Battalion at Nawa Kadal in September 2019. The outfit's poster appeared on social media and we got confused since there was an internet ban then. We traced the IP address to Pakistan. Our intercepts reveal that TRF has been formed by LeT, JeM and al-Badr together to circumvent the FATF grey list ban on Pakistan," the intelligence official said.DGP Dilbagh Singh told reporters in Srinagar that the two injured CRPF personnel had been airlifted to the Army’s 92 Base hospital at Badamibagh for treatment. "Even as we speak, security forces are engaged in a massive cordon-and-search operation in Sopore to catch the terrorist behind the attack," the DGP said.Slain head constable Bakhre was from Buldhana in Maharashtra, Sharma from Vaishali in Bihar and Satpal from Sabarkantha in Gujarat, news agency ANI said quoting a senior CRPF official.On Friday evening, a CRPF constable was injured in a terrorist attack on a police-CRPF camp at Newa in south Kashmir's Pulwama. The attack followed two encounters – one at Shopian and the other in Jammu's Kishtwar district – in which four Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists were gunned down. On April 5, five Army men and as many terrorists were killed in an encounter in Kupwara district that lasted almost 48 hours.In another incident on Saturday, a soldier slipped and plunged to his death while climbing a mountain near a forward post at Uri in Baramulla. A porter accompanying him was injured in the falḷ."After a long search in inclement weather, we recovered the body of 35-year-old Uttam Singh of the Army’s 11 Mahar Regiment . The porter was found alive and moved to a hospital," Baramulla SSP Abdul Qayoom said.