The anti-terrorist operation in Sonnar village of Chatroo area in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kishtwar district has restarted following a pause due to limited visibility. During the initial operation on January 18, eight Army soldiers were injured in an encounter with terrorists who attacked the joint forces with grenades and gunfire. Three of the injured soldiers were airlifted for treatment, while the remaining five received medical care locally.
Officials reported that most of the injured soldiers suffered splinter injuries from the grenade explosion. After a nightlong break, the joint forces have resumed their search operation to locate terrorists believed to be hiding in the upper regions. The operation was temporarily suspended due to the challenging terrain characterized by dense vegetation and steep slopes, which hindered visibility and movement.
Multiple teams comprising the Army, police, and paramilitary forces, along with drones and sniffer dogs, are scouring the area while maintaining a strict security cordon to prevent the terrorists from escaping. It is believed that a group of two to three terrorists, allegedly linked to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), are trapped in the vicinity. The operation, named ‘Operation Trashi-I’, was relaunched at daybreak today, but there have been no recent encounters with the terrorists.
The Army’s Nagrota-based White Knight Corps, in a post on X on Sunday, mentioned that the security forces engaged with the terrorists in the Sonnar area during the ongoing joint counter-terror exercises. The encounter marks the third conflict between security forces and terrorists in the Jammu region this year, with previous incidents occurring in the Kahog and Najote forests in the Billawar area of Kathua district.
Operations have been intensified in the lead-up to Republic Day to ensure peaceful celebrations, given intelligence reports of potential infiltration attempts by Pakistan-based handlers. The security forces have been focusing on hilly districts in Jammu division, including Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri, Kishtwar, Doda, Udhampur, and Reasi, following reports of movement by Pakistani terrorists in the densely forested mountainous terrain of these areas.
In a high-level security review meeting on Jammu and Kashmir on January 8, chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the presence of terrorists in the hilly districts of Jammu division was extensively discussed. Clear directives were issued to conduct coordinated, sustained, and intelligence-driven operations to eradicate terrorists from the mountainous regions and prevent infiltration across the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir.
