Srinagar:

Five Lashkar terrorists were killed today during a counter infiltration operation by police and army along the Line of Control or LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, said police

The encounter took place in Machil sector of Kupwara district today. In the initial shootout today, two terrorists were killed and in the ensuing gun battle three more terrorists were shot dead, police said.

According to police, the killed terrorists belonged to Lashkar-e-Toiba ( LeT).

Increasingly, the police are also being used in the counter infiltration operations, which was earlier done exclusively by the army.

The operation is still underway.

Dilbag Singh, Director General of J&K police, said that 16 terrorist launching pads are still operational across the LoC and there are efforts to push in terrorists from Pakistan.

A meeting of top officials of Jammu and Kashmir and security agencies was held at the headquarters of the 15 Corps in Srinagar on Wednesday.

The role of foreign terrorists in Kashmir was one of the big talking points at the meeting.

“The number of foreign terrorists has gone up again as local recruitments have gone down drastically,” said an official.

Out of 46 terrorists killed in the Union Territory this year, 37 were Pakistanis and only nine were locals, official figures reveal. This is the first time in the 33 years of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir that the number of foreign terrorists killed is four times as high as local terrorists. 

About 130 terrorists are operating in the Valley currently, of which half are foreign terrorists, says the Ministry of Home Affairs.