Four Indian Army personnel were killed in a gunfight with militants on Monday in Desa forest of Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district, reported The Indian Express.

At least five personnel had sustained bullet injuries while pursuing the militants into the forest, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified sources. The militants fled after the gunfight.

The injured soldiers were taken to the hospital, where four of them died.

The Army identified the soldiers who died as Captain Brijesh Thapa, Naik D Rajesh, Sepoy Bijendra and Sepoy Ajay.

The gunfight began around 9 pm on Monday after militants opened fire on security forces conducting search operations in the area, The Indian Express reported.

The security forces responded, and the exchange of fire continued for half an hour.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that he was deeply saddened by the deaths of the soldiers. “The Counter Terrorist operations are underway, and our soldiers remain committed to eliminate the scourge of terrorism and restore peace and order in the region,” he added in a post on X.

This is the third major attack on security forces in the Jammu division of the Union territory this month.

On July 8, four Army personnel were killed and six others were injured in the Union territory’s Kathua district after militants threw a grenade and fired at Army vehicles that were patrolling the Machedi-Kindli-Malhar.

A day earlier, one soldier was injured after an Army camp in the Rajouri district was attacked by militants.

In Kashmir division’s Kulgam district, six militants and two soldiers were also killed in two separate gunfights between July 6 and July 7.

Opposition questions Centre

In response to the incident, Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said on Monday that the “continuous terrorist attacks” revealed the “poor condition” of Jammu and Kashmir. “Our soldiers and their families are bearing the brunt of BJP’s [Bharatiya Janata Party’s] wrong policies,” the Congress leader said on social media.

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge criticised the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government for “acting as if everything is ‘business as usual’ and nothing has changed”.

“The spate of terror attacks that has gripped Jammu and Kashmir in the past 36 days, needs careful recalibration in our security strategy,” the Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha said in a social media post.

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was quoted as saying by ANI: “Soldiers from all over the country come to Kashmir for their duty, but go back in coffins. Who is responsible for this if you say militancy has ended in the Valley?”

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that the Jammu region alone has seen 11 terror attacks in the last 78 days, which he said was a wholly new development.

“What happened to all those grand claims made by the self-anointed non-biological PM and the self-styled Chanakya?” he asked.

Also read: ‘Not just a military solution’: How to tackle the Jammu militancy challenge