Overview
- Search teams recovered the bullet‑riddled bodies of two Special Police Officers early Thursday about two kilometres from where they were last seen, and their service rifles were not at the scene.
- The dead were identified as Babi Chand and Rashpal Kumar, who went missing while walking from their Kiyar camp toward an Army post in the Dachhan/Marwah area after locals reported hearing gunfire the previous afternoon.
- Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Army’s 17 Rashtriya Rifles and the CRPF launched a large joint operation with reinforcements, drones, sniffer dogs and cordon-and-search teams to track the assailants and recover the weapons.
- Investigators are treating a militant ambush as a primary line of inquiry because the rifles—including reports naming an INSAS and a .303—are missing and officials say cartridges of armour‑piercing type were recovered, and several suspected overground workers are being questioned.
- Kishtwar’s dense, high‑altitude forests and mobile‑network shadows complicate operations, officials say, and the killings have prompted political condemnation and intensified counter‑insurgency effort and security patrols in the region.