One militant was killed as the stand-off between security forces and militants holed up in a Government building at Pampore on the southern outskirts of Srinagar continued for the second day on Tuesday.
Sources said the security forces have prolonged the operation to prevent casualties on their side as mortar shelling and intermittent exchange of fire continued at the encounter site till late in the evening. The body of the slain militant was not retrieved from the encounter site till last reports came in.
The stand-off started on Monday morning when a group of two to three suspected militants sailed in a boat to enter into the multi-storey Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) building situated on the right bank of Jhelum at Sempora near Pampore, 10 kilometres from Srinagar. The militants took positions inside the building before opening fire on security vehicles passing on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway.
The traffic on Srinagar-Jammu Highway was diverted for the second day as intermittent exchange of fire continued.
At 5 pm, this correspondent witnessed heavy smoke billowing out from the building as security forces were targeting the structure with mortars.
Defence sources said that the encounter is likely to prolong as the security forces have strategised to flush out the militants without suffering any casualties. On the initial phase of the encounter, three security personnel were injured.
The security forces do not want repetition of an earlier encounter at the same premises on February 20 when two captain-rank officers and a commando from the elite Special Forces were killed while fighting four lashkar-e-Tayyeba militants who engaged the security forces for three days.