Eight Soldiers Injured in Kishtwar Encounter: Operation Trashi-I Underway

Eight Army personnel were injured in a prolonged encounter with terrorists in a remote forested area of Kishtwar district in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, officials said. The gunbattle erupted during a joint cordon-and-search operation launched on the basis of intelligence inputs about militant presence in the upper reaches of the district.

The encounter began around noon near Sonnar village , northeast of Chatroo , when security forces came under heavy fire while conducting search operations in dense forest terrain. According to officials, the terrorists opened indiscriminate firing and hurled grenades in an attempt to break the cordon and escape. Security forces retaliated, leading to an intense exchange of fire that continued intermittently for several hours before subsiding around 5.40 pm.

The Army’s Jammu-based White Knight Corps confirmed that the operation has been named ‘Operation Trashi-I’ . In a statement posted on X, the Corps said contact with terrorists was established during joint counter-terror operations being conducted with the Jammu and Kashmir Police , and that additional forces have been inducted to reinforce the cordon in coordination with civil administration and security agencies.

Officials said one of the search teams encountered a group of two to three foreign terrorists , suspected to belong to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfit. Reinforcements from the Army, CRPF and police were rushed to the area to prevent any breakout through forest routes.

Eight soldiers sustained injuries, most of them splinter wounds caused by grenade blasts , and were evacuated to hospital. Advanced surveillance equipment, including drones and sniffer dogs , has been deployed to track the militants.

This is the third encounter in the Jammu region this year , following similar gunfights in the Billawar forests of Kathua district on January 7 and 13. Security operations have been intensified ahead of Republic Day , amid intelligence warnings of renewed infiltration attempts by Pakistan-based handlers.