A top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander — believed to be the mastermind behind two major terrorist attacks this year — was gunned down by security forces in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir along with his associate on Thursday, even as one more soldier lost his life, culminating a 31-hour-long joint operation which had already led to the deaths of two army Captains and two soldiers a day earlier.

The so-called LeT commander — identified as Quari, a Pakistani national — was an expert bomb-maker, a sniper, and was well-trained in gurreilla warfare, senior army officials said.

Meanwhile, one more soldier — identified as Paratrooper Sachin Laur of Nagaliya Giurola in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh — lost his life in the gunbattle on Thursday, taking the army’s toll in the incident to five, officials added.

READ | J&K: Two Army personnel killed in encounter with terrorists in Rajouri

Captain MV Pranjal from Mangalore in Karnataka, and Captain Shubham Gupta of Agra in Uttar Pradesh, both from the 63 Rashtriya Rifles, were killed in a fierce gunbattle on Wednesday along with Havaldar Abdul Majid of 9 Para (Special Forces) from Ajote in Poonch, Lance Naik Sanjay Bisht of Halli Padli in Nainital of Uttarakhand.

The two injured army personnel — a major and a jawan — are admitted at the Army’s Command Hospital in Udhampur, the officials added.

A gunfight erupted on Wednesday after joint operations were launched in the Kalakote area of the dense Gulabgarh forest in Rajouri on Sunday based on specific inputs.

“A top LeT commander identified as Quari, the mastermind behind Dhangri and Kandi terror attacks, along with his associate was killed in Baajimal-Kalakote area on Thursday during an encounter with the security forces… He was active in Rajouri-Poonch alongwith his group in the past year,” said a spokesperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

READ | Terrorist neutralised in Rajouri; arms, ammo recovered

The January 1-2 Dhangri attack had left seven civillians dead. On May 5, five soldiers were killed in an attack during an encounter inside Kandi forest in Rajouri.

“The terrorist was sent to revive terrorism in the region and he was an expert IEDs, operating and hiding in caves (guerilla warfare) and a trained sniper,” said the spokesperson.

Quari was active in Rajouri-Poonch along with his group for the past one year, the spokesperson said, adding that “incriminating materials” including arms and ammunition were recovered from his possession.

“During further searches, Quari’s associate was also killed. The dead bodies of both terrorists have also been retrieved and taken for further medico-legal formalities,” he added. The identity of the other terrorist is yet to be verified.

The entire area is being thoroughly searched and combed by security personnel, officials said.

The operation was set into motion on Sunday, after the two terrorists were seen asking residents in the area for food, officials familiar with the investigation in the case said. First, on Sunday, they were seen at a house asking for food — a video of which was shared on social media. On Tuesday, they assaulted a nomad man after he refused to give them food, the people cited above said.

“The two terrorists, including Quari, had visited the house on Sunday where they were seen asking people for food. The video of this incident had gone viral,” they said. On Tuesday, they assaulted Sarfaraz Ahmed, a nomad, at Bajimaal after he denied food to them, they added.

It was Sarfaraz who tipped off the security forces about the terrorists.

Based on this input, security officials kicked off the joint operation to corner the terrorists.

“As security forces were laying the cordon around the area on Wednesday, terrorists, who by then were well-entrenched atop hills, opened heavy fire from their automatic weapons. This ended up taking a heavy toll on our officers and soldiers,” a police official said, asking not to be identified.

It was in this attack that Captain Pranjal, Captain Gupta, Havaldar Majid and Lance Naik Bisht lost their lives, the officials said.

Wednesday’s encounter comes close on the heels of another gunfight in Behrote in Budhal area of Rajouri on November 17, in which one terrorist was killed. On September 12 and 13, security forces had gunned two terrorists in Narla area of Rajouri district.

The two border districts of Rajouri and Poonch in Jammu, south of the Pir Panjal, and especially the former, have become a hotspot for Pakistan-sponsored terrorism over the past two years or so, a period in which they have seen nine major attacks, resulting in the deaths of eight terrorists, 29 security personnel and nine civilians.

Security experts attribute the spike in terror attacks on security forces and civilians to a multitude of factors – the hilly topography of Rajouri and Poonch, their proximity to the Line of Control, the presence of traditional and easier infiltration routes compared to those in the Kashmir division of the UT, and the fact that it has a profusion of dense jungles and natural caves. They also point to the larger gameplan of the Pakistani handlers of these terrorists – an attempt to target Hindus in the hills of Jammu and force their migration.

On September 11, Northern Army commander Lt General Upendra Dwivedi had said that nearly 200 terrorists were waiting to cross the LoC from Pakistan. “They are waiting to infiltrate our territory, but our alert troops are deployed at the borders and we are trying to eliminate them there itself,” he said at the time.