The gunbattle in north’s Kashmir’s Handwara, during which an Indian Army colonel and four other security personnel were killed, had been raging since Saturday afternoon.

Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, Naik Rajesh Kumar and Lance Naik Dinesh Singh and sub-inspector of Jammu-Kashmir police Shakeel Qazi were martyred in the line of duty while rescuing civilians held hostage by the terrorists.

Two terrorists were also shot dead by the security forces in the Handwara encounter.

Col Sharma, the commanding officer of the army’s 21 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, was leading the three army men and the sub-inspector and had been locked in a gunfight with the terrorists holed up inside a house in Rajwar forests.

The army said a joint operation was launched by the army and state police based on the intelligence input that terrorists were taking hostage some civilians in a house in Changimulla.

A team comprising of the five army and police personnel entered the target area occupied by the terrorists to evacuate the civilians.

The terrorists came into the village near the forest as the operation was underway and went inside the house that had a cowshed near to it.

Col Sharma, who had been decorated for gallantry twice in Kashmir, Major Sood and sub-inspector Qazi took refuge inside a house as they thought that the terrorists were hiding inside the cowshed. The moment they went inside the house, a gunfight ensued.

After that, there was no communication between the army teams outside the house and CO who had gone inside for a few hours.

Late in the night, assault teams of the army went inside the house late and recovered the bodies of all five security force personnel.

However, the team came under a heavy firing by the terrorists during the process and in the ensuing firefight, two terrorists were gunned down and the security personnel were killed.