Army, police pay tributes to captain killed in Doda encounter

Jammu: Army and police on Thursday paid tributes to Captain Deepak Singh who was killed in an encounter with terrorists in nearby Udhampur district, officials said.

A search operation to track down the terrorists who fled the site of encounter is underway in Assar belt of Doda district.

A wreath-laying ceremony was held in Jammu in which General-officer-Commanding (GoC) White Knight Corps Lieutenant General Navin Sachdeva, Divisional Commissioner Ramesh Kumar, Additional Director General of Police Anand Jain laid wreaths and paid tributes to Singh at the IAF station here.

Several officers of civil administration, army, police and paramilitary forces also paid tributes of the captain.

On Wednesday, Captain Deepak Singh and one terrorist were killed in an encounter in Assar area of Jammu and Kashmir's Doda district on Wednesday. One civilian was also injured in the encounter.

Singh was critically injured in the operation and shifted to a military hospital where he breathed his last.

Searches for the terrorists is going on in the area as the security forces expanded the area of operation in the hilly belt of Doda and Udhampur districts.

This is fourth encounter in the recent days in the Udhampuri-Doda-Kishtwar region.

Security forces engaged terrorists in two encounters on Sunday as well -- in the remote forest areas of Nownatta in Kishtwar and the Basantgarh area of Udhampur.  Following these encounters, terrorists escaped into Doda hills.  On June 26, three terrorists, suspected to be affiliated with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), were killed in a gunfight on Gandoh area of Doda district.