Jammu, Nov 14 (IANS) A massive anti-terrorist operation was launched in J&K’s Kishtwar district on Saturday in the wake of the killings of two special police officers (SPOs) by terrorists, officials said.

Officials said the joint operation, comprising personnel from the Army, Jammu and Kashmir Police, and Village Defence Guards (VDGs), is underway in the dense forest areas of Kishtwar to trace and track down terrorists.

Kishtwar's Senior Superintendent of Police Sunny Gupta is supervising the operation.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition (LOP) in the Assembly, Sunil Sharma and Kishtwar MLA, Shagun Parihar, visited the families of the deceased Special Police Officers (SPOs) and expressed their condolences and solidarity with the bereaved families.

During the visit, they assured the families that a high-level probe would be conducted into the incident and also assured fresh recruitment.

Babi Chand and Rashpal Kumar were attached to the Special Operations Group (SOG) at Kiyar village in the Dachhan area.

On Wednesday, the two SPOs went missing while walking from their camp toward an Army post at Dherna in the Dachhan-Marwah belt to relieve colleagues on rotation duty. Following a massive search operation, security forces recovered their bullet-riddled bodies from the Dherna Top forest area early on Thursday.

Investigators found empty bullet shells of Pakistani-origin armour-piercing ammunition at the scene. The terrorists took the officers' service weapons -- an INSAS rifle and a .303 rifle.

The Kishtwar attack occurred barely 24 hours after the terrorists fired at and injured three CRPF personnel in the Akhran area near Mir Bazar in Kulgam district.

These two terrorist attacks brought the claims of terrorism having ended in J&K into serious question.

--IANS

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