J&K LG Manoj Sinha, Army pay tribute to five Army personnel who lost their lives in encounter in Rajouri

Jammu, May 6 (PTI) Jammu & Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and officials from the Indian Army on Saturday paid homage to five soldiers killed in an IED explosion in Rajouri district, officials said on Saturday.

Besides the five soldiers, a major was injured in the explosion which took place Friday in the thickly forested Kandi area of Rajouri district where an operation was underway to flush out terrorists, they had earlier said.

According to the latest reports, the fire fighting between terrorists and security forces was still on in Kandi forest belt.

A wreath-laying ceremony was held at IAF station in Jammu, where Sinha along with General Officer commanding (GoC) in Chief (GoC-In-C) Northern Command General Upendra Dwivedi, police, and other military officers paid their tributes to the soldiers.

The soldiers killed in the Friday explosion were lance naik Ruchin Singh Rawat from Gairsain in Uttarakhand, paratrooper Siddhant Chettri from Darjeeling in West Bengal, naik Arvind Kumar from Kangra district in Himachal Pradesh, havildar Neelam Singh from Jammu, and paratrooper Pramod Negi from Sirmaur in Himachal Pradesh.