Srinagar | Jagran News Desk: Two Indian Army soldiers, including an officer, lost their lives while several others were injured in a "mysterious blast" in the Nowshera-Sunderbani sector of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district on Saturday evening, said officials.
"An Indian Army officer and a soldier lost their lives in a mysterious blast that took place in the Naushera sector of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday," news agency ANI quoted Indian Army officials as saying.
Though the exact nature of the blast is not known yet, media reports suggest that the Army team stepped on a landmine while patroling at a forward post along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Rajouri district.
Officials, quoted by news agency PTI, have not ruled out the possibility of the use of improvised explosive device (IED) by terrorists to target the patrol team. They have also said that those injured in the blast have been admitted to a local hospital.
It must be mentioned that the area "where the explosion took place is dotted with landmines planted by the army as part of the counter-infiltration arrangement," said officials.
The latest casualty of the Army comes at a time when it has lost nine of its soldiers, including two Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), in a search and destroy operation in the Poonch district. The operation in Poonch entered the 20th day on Saturday, but the officials have not been able to trace the terrorists.
Officials have said that the ongoing operation in Poonch and Rajouri is the longest in the area since 2003. In April-May 2003, the Army had launched a massive combing, search and destroy operation in Hill Kaka area of Surankote belt of Poonch district and killed 83 terrorists, most of them foreign mercenaries.
They believe that the terrorists, armed with sophisticated weapons, are allegedly being supported by the locals. An official, quoted by PTI, has said that a dozen of people, including two women, were also detained for questioning on Friday.
"The anti-terror operation to clean up forests in the belt is on. It is probably the longest-drawn operation in many many years," PTI quoted an Army officer as saying.