SRINAGAR: A spokesman for the Indian army said that militants stormed a military camp early on Saturday in India-held state of Jammu and Kashmir, killing two army personnel and wounding nine people.

Two militants had also been killed as of Saturday evening. The assailants wore fatigues and carried assault rifles, a large amount of ammunition and hand grenades, said the spokesman, Lt Col Devender Anand.

Among the wounded were five women and children, he said.

The army camp was cordoned off and surrounded by police and army units called in as reinforcements. Efforts to clear the camp were ongoing, Anand said.

“The operations will continue till all terrorists are apprehended or killed,” he said.

S.D. Singh Jamwal, the inspector general of police in Jammu, said that at about 4:55am, a guard noticed suspicious movement before gunfire on his bunker.

“The fire was retaliated. The number of militants isn’t known,” he said.

The attackers were later cornered in one of the family quarters in the area.

“Two Junior Commissioned Officers have been killed and six others injured in Jammu militant attack,” a senior minister, Abdul Rehman Veeri, told lawmakers at the held state’s legislature.

Hindu-majority Jammu, located in the foothills of the disputed mountainous region, is relatively peaceful but has repeatedly seen militant assaults on military bases.

Seven soldiers were killed in a similar attack in Jammu after militants in police uniforms stormed a major army base in November 2016.

Militant groups have for years fought the roughly half a million Indian soldiers deployed in the region, demanding independence or a merger with Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2018