The presence of two active groups of foreign terrorists, comprising four to six members, in the upper reaches of the Udhampur district has kept the entire security grid on its tenterhooks since late Saturday evening.

After receiving inputs about the presence of terrorists in the Basantgarh area the security forces mobilized troops to neutralize them early Sunday morning.

A member of the Village Defence Guard was killed in action during an initial exchange of firing in the remote Panara village of Chochru Gala Heights, Basantgarh.

As more troops were rushed to the spot to lay a tight cordon the foreign terrorists managed to give a slip to the police party.

Unconfirmed reports suggested one of the terrorist groups was spotted in the upper reaches around 11.00 a.m. The gunfight erupted around 7.45 a.m on Sunday during which the VDG member received injuries and later succumbed.

Since Sunday, the Indian army has also rushed fresh reinforcements to capture these foreign terrorists but as the anti-terrorist operation continued for the second consecutive day no major headway was achieved on Monday.

The area is witnessing inclement weather conditions and the same is hampering the ongoing operations in the area.

On Monday, the security forces conducted thorough searches in the thickly forested belt of Basantgarh. The security forces also deployed sniffer dogs and drone cameras to trap these foreign terrorists. Senior security officials supervising the anti-terrorist operations on ground zero told media persons on Sunday as per initial inputs two groups of terrorists are believed to be present in the area after they recently infiltrated from across the border.

Additional Director General of Police, Jammu Anand Jain said the strength of the two groups, as per preliminary investigation, is between four and six and the security forces are working on various inputs to flush them out.

Jain maintained the security personnel are thoroughly investigating how these two groups managed to infiltrate to reach Basantgarh. When militancy was at its peak in the late 1990's the deep forests of Basantgarh were used as transit points by the terrorist groups to move upwards towards the Chenab valley region. The area also witnessed targeted killings of Village Defence Committee members. 13 members belonging to the minority community were killed in 2006 in the Basantgarh area.