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Militants break into camp, all three killed

Security forces, during a night-long operation yesterday, killed three militants holed up in a building inside an army camp at Khanabal, about 52 kilometres from Srinagar in the southern Kashmir district of Anantnag. One officer and two civilians, including a woman, were killed in the exchange of fire.

The operation was mounted last evening after a group of three militants on a suicide mission sneaked into a building inside the army camp. All the three militants were killed during the operation which ended early Thursday morning.

Official sources told UNI that the building which the militants entered on Wednesday evening was blown-up early on Thursday by security forces. The security forces fired rockets, mortars and used explosives in the operation after three state officials, who were taken hostage by the militants, were rescued.

When reports last came in debris was being removed to recover the militants' bodies.

A ministry of defence spokesman said that a group of militants arrived in a van in combat fatigue near the Rashtriya Rifles camp last evening. They hurled grenades and resorted to indiscriminate firing while trying to break into the camp. The sentries at the gate returned the fire, but the militants managed to enter a nearby building which was immediately cordoned off by the army, the police and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police.

In the encounter that ensued three civilians, including a woman, were killed.

UNI

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