SRINAGAR – It took Indian forces 56 hours to neutralise two Kashmirifighters in an encounter with at least five soldiers dead including anofficer.

Two militants, five security personnel, including a CRPF officer, and acivilian were killed in a 56-hour encounter in Kupwara district of OccupiedKashmir,linksaid on March 3.

A police spokesman said the operation at Babagund area of Kupwara districttook time as it posed considerable difficulties to the security forces dueto the topography of the area.

Two militants were killed by security forces in the encounter which beganon March 1 morning, the police spokesman said in Srinagar.00:0000:00

He said bodies of both the militants were recovered from the site of theencounter and their identities and affiliations are being ascertained.

The spokesman said a CRPF jawan — identified as Sham Narayan Singh Yadav —who was injured in the exchange of fire on March 1, succumbed to injurieson March 3 — taking the number of fatalities of security personnel to five.

Two CRPF personnel, Inspector Pintu Kumar Singh and Constable Vinod, andtwo policeman — Selection Grade Constables Naseer Ahmad and Ghulam MustafaBarah — were killed in the gunfight on March 1, the spokesman said.

He said one civilian, Waseem Ahmad Mir, also sustained bullet injury “inthe nearby area” and later succumbed at a hospital on March 1.

The encounter began when security forces launched a search operation inBabagund area in north Kashmir, following information about presence ofmilitants there. “The area where the militants were hiding was verycongested and civilians in the adjoining houses had to be evacuated to thesafer places away from the site of encounter,” he said.