J&K militants given a chance to surrender before killing: Army commander

A senior Army commander said Tuesday the security forces don’t want to kill militants and each one is given an ample opportunity to surrender during counter-insurgency operations by the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

Lt. Gen. Baggavalli Somashekhar Raju, commander of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps, said in a television interview that any loss of life is “sad”. He said: “As far as the forces are concerned, we take extraordinary care to reduce such events (collateral damage in anti-militancy operations). Leave alone civilian casualties, we don’t want to kill even militants… we give them an opportunity to surrender,” he said.

Meanwhile, one militant was killed and two Army jawans and a J&K policeman were injured in a gunfight in southern Pulwama district since Tuesday morning, officials said. They said that the militant was gunned down by the security forces after he tried to jump from a house during a cordon-and-search operation in Pulwama’s Goosu village. Local sources said two to three more militants who too were trapped in the houses managed to break the security dragnet and escape.