AMN / WEB DESK

A day ahead of the third phase of polling for the J&K assembly, a police head constable was martyred and a Pakistani terrorist killed in an ongoing encounter in the Kog Mandli area of Jammu’s Kathua district, Additional DGP Anand Jain said on Sunday.

Two police officers — deputy SP (Operations) Sukhbir Singh and Assistant Sub-Inspector Niaz Ahmad — were seriously injured in the gunfight with terrorists. The injured officers were airlifted in an Army helicopter to a hospital in Jammu for treatment where their condition is stated to be‘stable’.

Head Constable Bashir Ahmad lost his life while fighting the terrorists with his light machine gun (LMG) in the Billawar area of Kathua where Pakistani terrorists were operating for the past few months.

The fierce encounters in Jammu’s Kathua and Kashmir’s Kulgam districts that broke out on Saturday have cast a shadow on the peace narrative of the BJP leadership .

Polling for 40 assembly seats is scheduled to be held in the third and final phase on Tuesday. The terrorism-hit Billawar area of Kathua will also go to polls on October.

As many as 26 seats are in the Jammu division and 14 in north Kashmir.