Six J&K policemen killed in ambush by terrorists in Anantnag

Six policemen, including the station house officer (SHO) of the Achabal police station, were killed when their vehicles were ambushed by a group of about five terrorists at Thajiwara Achabal in Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir yesterday evening.

Official sources said the incident occurred around 6.30 pm yesterday when the SHO, sub-inspector Firoz Ahmad Dar, accompanied by five constables, were travelling towards Anantnag town in a Tata Sumo vehicle when the militants ambushed them and opened fire.

All six policemen died in the attack, which took place about 17 km from Arwani, where security forces and militants were engaged in an encounter, and about five km from an Army camp at Khandru.

Police cordoned off the entire area, but the terrorists managed to escape after seizing weapons from the slain policemen. According to some reports, the terrorists fired at the policemen from close range, disfiguring the faces of some of them.

The reports also said that the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) had claimed responsibility for the attack. Police said the attack appeared to have aimed at avenging the death of their local commander in an encounter in Arwani.

Senior police officials said the  perpetrators of the attack would be nabbed and brought to justice.

NNN