Three CRPF Personnel Injured as Gunmen Open Fire at Checkpoint in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam District

Three personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force were injured on Wednesday afternoon when gunmen opened fire on a security checkpoint in the Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir, in the latest attack on security forces in the south of the territory. The firing took place at about 2.15 pm at Akhran, near Mir Bazar, and the attackers fled the scene before reinforcements could reach the spot. The injured men were taken to a hospital in the neighbouring Anantnag district, where one of them, who suffered wounds to his abdomen and spine, was in a critical condition and undergoing surgery. Security forces cordoned off the area within minutes and launched a large search operation that was still under way on Thursday morning, while a team of the National Investigation Agency was due to visit the site to collect samples and examine forensic evidence. No group had claimed responsibility for the attack by Thursday morning, and officials said the identity of the attackers had not been established, although investigators were examining the suspected involvement of a local commander linked to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba. The attack came on a day when the territory’s Lieutenant Governor was visiting the same district to open a cultural festival, and it was the first reported terrorist incident in Kulgam since two labourers were killed there in August. This report brings together what officials and the injured men’s colleagues have confirmed about the Kulgam CRPF attack, the three injured personnel, and the search operation now under way in November 2026.

1. What Happened at the Checkpoint

The attack was brief, sudden and carried out in daylight, at a checkpoint that sits close to one of the most important roads in the Kashmir Valley. What is known so far comes from police officials, a spokesperson for the Central Reserve Police Force, and the first accounts carried by the Press Trust of India and other news agencies. The details that follow are drawn from those accounts, and where the accounts differ, the difference is noted rather than smoothed over, because the exact sequence of the firing is still being established by the investigators who are now working at the site.

1.1 The Attack at Akhran Near Mir Bazar

The firing took place at about 2.15 pm on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, at a Central Reserve Police Force checkpoint at Akhran, near Mir Bazar, in the Kulgam district of south Kashmir. The checkpoint is about 75 kilometres from Srinagar and roughly a kilometre from the strategic Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, the road that connects the Kashmir Valley with Jammu and the rest of India. One account, carried by the Press Trust of India, said two heavily armed men emerged from a dense cluster of trees and opened fire at the post before disappearing back into the forested area. Other accounts described the attackers as two men on a motorcycle who fired at the personnel manning the checkpoint and then sped away. The two descriptions are not necessarily in conflict: a motorcycle can be parked or hidden near a treeline, and the first moments of an attack are often the hardest to reconstruct. What every account agrees on is the time, the place, the weapon and the outcome. The attackers fired an AK-47 rifle at the men on duty, three of them were hit, and the gunmen got away before the security forces could respond in force. A senior police officer put the time of the attack at about 2.15 pm, and a spokesperson for the Central Reserve Police Force confirmed that firing had taken place at the force’s checkpoint in Kulgam and that operations were under way to catch those responsible. The checkpoint where the attack happened is a bridge guard party position at Nawapora, near Mir Bazar, according to one report, and it is located about four kilometres from the National Highway itself. That distance matters, because it means the post sits on a secondary road used by local traffic, not on the highway, and the men on duty there were guarding a bridge rather than stopping vehicles on the main road. The attack lasted only moments. The gunmen fired, the three personnel fell wounded, and the attackers vanished, either into the trees or down the road on their motorcycle, before the alarm could bring reinforcements to the spot.

1.2 The Three Injured Personnel

The three injured men were identified by officials as Head Constable Somveer Singh and Constables Rakesh Dass and Santosh Chandru. All three were taken to a hospital in Anantnag district, about 22 kilometres from the site of the attack, and all three were receiving treatment there on Wednesday evening. Their injuries were different in severity, and that difference shaped the medical response. Constable Santosh Chandru, a resident of West Bengal, suffered gunshot wounds to his abdomen and spine. He was the most seriously hurt of the three, and he was described as being in a critical condition and undergoing surgery. One report said he had abdominal and spinal injuries and was in a critical condition; another said his condition was slightly serious and that he was in surgery. The accounts agree that he was the one whose life was most at risk. Constable Rakesh Dass, a resident of Assam, was shot in the leg and was reported to be in a stable condition. Head Constable Somveer Singh, a resident of Madhya Pradesh, was hit in the left arm and was also reported to be stable. Early reports differed on the condition of the second and third men: one account said two of the three were in a critical condition, while the official account put one man as slightly seriously injured and the other two as stable with minor injuries. The hospital sources quoted in later reports were consistent with the official version: one man in a critical condition with a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and two with comparatively less severe injuries. The three men were part of the force’s 46th Battalion, which was manning the checkpoint at the time of the attack. Their families were informed, and the force said the injured men were under treatment. The attack did not kill anyone, but the wound to the abdomen and spine suffered by Constable Chandru was serious enough that doctors were operating on him through the evening, and his condition remained the main concern for the force on Thursday morning.

2. The Search Operation Under Way

Within minutes of the firing, the area around Akhran and Mir Bazar was sealed off, and a search operation began that was still running on Thursday morning. The operation is the immediate priority for the security forces, because the attackers are still at large, and because the ground they fled into is a mix of orchards, forest patches and villages that can hide a small group for hours or days. The National Investigation Agency, India’s federal counter-terrorism agency, was also preparing to send a team to the site, which is the standard step when an attack on security forces is being treated as a terrorist incident.

2.1 A Cordon Across the Area

A massive cordon and search operation, known in Kashmir as a CASO, continued for nearly 17 hours in the Kulgam district on Thursday after the attack, according to reports published on Thursday morning. Security forces were carrying out extensive searches in the area to trace and apprehend the attackers, who had fled the spot after opening fire on the personnel. The operation involved cordoning off the area around the checkpoint and searching houses, orchards and stretches of forest, while additional forces were deployed to the roads leading out of the area. Such operations are a familiar part of the security routine in south Kashmir. They are disruptive for the people who live in the cordoned area, because movement is restricted and homes are searched, but they are also the main tool the forces have for catching attackers who have melted into the local population or the surrounding countryside. By Thursday morning, no arrests had been reported in the accounts available, and no contact with the attackers had been reported. The operation was continuing, and officials said the search was extensive. The length of the operation, nearly 17 hours by Thursday morning, suggests that the forces believed the attackers were still in the general area, or that they were working through a list of locations where the attackers might have taken shelter. It also suggests that the forces were not treating the attack as a hit-and-run by outsiders who had already left the district, but as an attack by people who knew the ground and had somewhere to go.

2.2 The NIA Visit and the Forensic Examination

A team of the National Investigation Agency was due to visit the site of the attack on Thursday to collect samples and examine forensic evidence, according to reports published on Thursday. The team was to visit Akhran near Mir Bazar, where the attackers had opened fire on the checkpoint on Wednesday afternoon, injuring the three personnel. The NIA team was to collect samples from the spot as part of the examination of the attack site. The involvement of the NIA is significant, because the agency takes up cases that are treated as terrorist incidents with wider implications, and its forensic examination can establish facts that the first police investigation cannot, such as the exact type and origin of the ammunition used, the number of shots fired, and the direction from which they were fired. The samples collected from the site, including spent cartridges, blood, and any material left behind by the attackers, can also be matched against evidence from earlier attacks, which can help investigators work out whether the same group was involved. The NIA’s visit does not mean the local police investigation has been handed over; in many cases the two run in parallel, with the police handling the immediate search and the NIA building the longer-term case. The timing of the visit, the day after the attack, is standard practice, because the site needs to be examined before rain, traffic or further searching disturbs the evidence. What the NIA finds will not be made public quickly, and the agency does not usually comment on an ongoing examination, so the results of its work may not be known for days or weeks.

3. Who the Attackers May Be

By Thursday morning, no group had claimed responsibility for the attack, and the identity of the attackers had not been officially established. That is not unusual in the first hours after an attack in Kashmir, where claims of responsibility often come later, if they come at all, and where the security forces are careful not to name a group until they have evidence. But unnamed sources in the security establishment were already pointing investigators towards a particular suspect, and the reports that carried those claims also carried the caution that the claims had not been confirmed.

3.1 The Lateef Bhat Suspicion

A source in the security establishment said the attackers were believed to be associates of Mohammed Lateef Bhat, an alleged operative of The Resistance Front, which is regarded as an offshoot of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba. Another account said one of the assailants was suspected to be a foreign terrorist linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The Press Trust of India reported that, while official confirmation regarding the identity of the attackers was awaited, security agencies suspected the involvement of Mohammed Lateef Bhat, described as a local commander of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit who had previously escaped a security operation in Shopian in July. The reports that carried these claims offered no evidence beyond unnamed sources, and the same reports noted that the involvement of Bhat had not been officially established. The Resistance Front, often shortened to TRF, emerged in 2019 and is treated by Indian security agencies as a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was banned long ago and is blamed by India for a series of attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The Lashkar-e-Taiba is based in Pakistan, and India has long accused Pakistan of supporting it, a charge Pakistan denies. The suggestion that the Kulgam attackers were linked to Bhat and to the TRF therefore fits a familiar pattern in the official telling of attacks in Kashmir, but it is important to be clear about what has and has not been established. No official has named Bhat as the attacker. No evidence linking him to the attack has been published. No claim of responsibility has been made by the TRF or by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. The suspicion is a lead for investigators, not a finding, and it will remain a lead until the attackers are caught or the forensic evidence points to a particular group.

3.2 No Claim of Responsibility

No terrorist group had claimed responsibility for the attack by Thursday morning, according to the reports available. That silence is worth noting, because claims of responsibility, when they come, usually come quickly in Kashmir, often within hours, through social media channels or statements carried by local news outlets. The absence of a claim does not prove anything on its own. Groups sometimes stay silent to protect their members, or because the attack was carried out by a small cell that does not want attention, or because the claim is still being prepared. But the silence also means that the attack cannot yet be attributed to any group with confidence, and it means that the reports pointing to Bhat and the TRF are based on the security forces’ assessment of the attack’s style and location, rather than on any statement by the attackers themselves. The attack’s style, two men firing at a checkpoint and then disappearing, is consistent with the kind of small-scale attack that has been carried out in south Kashmir for years, and it does not by itself identify the group responsible. The investigators will be looking at the weapon used, the ammunition, the route the attackers took, and any communications they may have left behind, and it is those details, rather than the first reports, that will determine who is blamed for the attack in the end.

4. Kulgam and the Security Picture in South Kashmir

Kulgam is one of the four districts of south Kashmir, along with Anantnag, Pulwama and Shopian, and it has been one of the most troubled parts of the territory for years. The attack on Wednesday was the first reported terrorist incident in the district since August, and that gap of roughly three months is itself a measure of how the security picture has changed, and of how fragile the change remains.

4.1 A District on the National Highway

Kulgam district sits in the south of the Kashmir Valley, and the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway runs through it, which makes it strategically important. The highway is the main road link between the Valley and the rest of India, and it carries military convoys, civilian traffic and goods. Attacks near the highway are therefore treated seriously, because they threaten a road that the entire Valley depends on. The checkpoint at Akhran, near Mir Bazar, is about a kilometre from the highway, and the town of Mir Bazar itself is a small market town on the road. The area around it is a mix of orchards, villages and forest patches, which gives attackers cover and escape routes. Kulgam has long been a centre of militancy in south Kashmir. It is the home district of several commanders of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and it has seen some of the longest gunfights and some of the largest search operations in the territory. The district’s proximity to Shopian, another troubled district, means that militants can move between the two, and the forests and orchards that cover much of the area make it hard for the security forces to dominate the ground completely. The attack on Wednesday, at a checkpoint a short distance from the highway, was a reminder that the district’s problems have not gone away, even if the number of attacks has fallen.

4.2 The August Kelam Killings

The last recorded terrorist attack in the Kulgam district before Wednesday was on August 1, 2026, when terrorists killed two labourers in the Kelam area of the district. The Wednesday attack was therefore the first reported terrorist incident in Kulgam since that killing, ending a gap of roughly three months. The Kelam killings were themselves part of a pattern of attacks on labourers from outside the territory, a pattern that has been a feature of the violence in Kashmir for years. The victims in Kelam were migrant workers, and their killing was intended, like other such killings, to frighten workers from other parts of India away from Kashmir and to damage the local economy. The gap between August 1 and November 11 does not mean that Kulgam was peaceful in the meantime. Search operations, arrests and the recovery of weapons continued through those months, and the security forces were active in the district. But no attack on security forces or civilians was reported in the district during that period, and the gap was long enough to be noticed. The return of an attack after three months will be read by the security forces as a sign that the groups operating in the district are still capable of mounting an attack, even if they have been quieter than before. It will also be read by the people of the district as a sign that the improvement in security is not yet permanent, and that a single attack can undo months of relative calm.

5. The CRPF’s Role at Checkpoints

The Central Reserve Police Force is the largest paramilitary force in India, and it has been deployed in Jammu and Kashmir for decades. Its personnel man checkpoints, guard roads and bridges, and carry out search operations alongside the police and the army. The three men injured on Wednesday were doing one of the most routine and most exposed jobs in the force’s repertoire, and the attack on them was an attack on a routine duty, not on a special operation.

5.1 The 46th Battalion on Duty

The personnel at the checkpoint belonged to the CRPF’s 46th Battalion, which was manning the position at Akhran on Wednesday afternoon. The battalion is one of the CRPF units deployed in south Kashmir, and its men are responsible for guarding roads, bridges and installations in the area. A battalion in the CRPF is a large unit, typically made up of several hundred men, and it is divided into companies that are deployed to different posts and checkpoints. The men at the Akhran checkpoint were part of a bridge guard party, a small detachment whose job is to guard a bridge and the road that crosses it. Bridge guard parties are posted at points where a road crosses a river or a stream, and their job is to watch the bridge, check vehicles and people who cross it, and prevent anyone from damaging it. The work is routine, but it is also exposed, because the men are standing in the open at a fixed point, and anyone who wants to attack them knows exactly where they are. The checkpoint at Akhran was a routine position, and the men on duty there were not on a special operation or a raid. They were doing the job they do every day, and the attack came without warning.

5.2 Checkpoint Duty and Its Risks

Checkpoint duty is one of the most dangerous jobs in Kashmir, because the men on duty are stationary, visible and outnumbered if an attack comes. A checkpoint is a fixed point, and the attackers know where it is, when the men change shifts, and how many of them are on duty. The men on duty have to watch the road, check documents and search vehicles, which means their attention is divided, and they are often standing in the open with little cover. An attack on a checkpoint is therefore a low-risk operation for the attackers, who can fire from a distance or from a passing motorcycle and then disappear, and a high-risk duty for the men on the post. The attack at Akhran followed that pattern. The gunmen fired from a position that gave them cover, or from a motorcycle that let them move quickly, and they were gone before the men at the post could return fire effectively. The CRPF has lost many men at checkpoints over the years, and the force has tried to reduce the risk by building sandbagged positions, using bulletproof vehicles and rotating the men on duty, but the fundamental vulnerability remains. A checkpoint cannot be moved, and the men on it cannot be hidden, so they will always be a target for anyone who wants to attack the security forces. The three men injured at Akhran were lucky in one sense: none of them was killed, and two of them were stable within hours. But the attack was a reminder that the routine work of guarding roads and bridges in Kashmir is still dangerous, and that the men who do it are exposed every day they are on duty.

6. The Response From Officials and Political Leaders

The response to the attack was swift in operational terms, with the cordon going up within minutes and the search operation running through the night, and it was measured in public terms, with officials confirming the facts and political leaders condemning the attack without speculating about who was behind it. The coincidence of the attack with a visit by the territory’s Lieutenant Governor to the same district added a layer of attention to the day, but the Lieutenant Governor was not near the scene of the attack, and the festival he was opening went ahead.

6.1 What the Force and the Police Said

A spokesperson for the Central Reserve Police Force confirmed the firing on the force’s checkpoint at Kulgam and said operations were under way to catch those responsible. A senior police officer put the time of the attack at about 2.15 pm and confirmed that three personnel had been injured. The statements were brief and factual, and they did not name a suspect or a group. That restraint is standard practice in the first hours after an attack, when the priority is the search operation and the treatment of the injured, and when naming a group prematurely can mislead the investigation. The police and the force also confirmed the identity of the injured men and the hospital to which they had been taken, and they said the search operation was continuing. The NIA’s decision to send a team to the site was reported on Thursday, and it was presented as part of the standard response to an attack on security forces. The official statements did not give a figure for the number of attackers beyond the two men described in the first accounts, and they did not say whether the attackers were local or from outside the territory. The investigation is still at an early stage, and the officials involved have said little beyond what is needed to confirm the attack and the search.

6.2 Condemnation and the Veshow Festival

The attack was condemned by political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir, including the Jammu and Kashmir president of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, Vevik Bali, who strongly condemned the attack on the CRPF personnel at Akhran and prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured men. His statement was published late on Wednesday night, and it was one of the first political reactions to the attack. Other leaders were expected to condemn the attack as well, and the condemnation was likely to be bipartisan, because attacks on security forces in Kashmir are condemned by political parties across the spectrum, even when those parties disagree about almost everything else. The attack took place on a day when the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, was visiting Kulgam district to inaugurate the Veshow festival, a cultural celebration rooted in the region’s centuries-old Rishi-Sufi legacy. The inauguration came on the same day that the gunmen opened fire on the CRPF party in the Akhran area of Mir Bazar, and the contrast between the two events, a festival celebrating the region’s culture and an attack on its security forces, was noted in the reports of the day. The Lieutenant Governor was not near the scene of the attack, and the festival went ahead. The fact that the attack happened on the same day as a high-profile visit to the district will have been noted by the security forces, who will be asking whether the timing was a coincidence or whether the attackers chose the day deliberately to draw attention to themselves.

7. What the Attack Means for the Region

The attack at Akhran was small in scale. Three men were injured, none was killed, and the attackers fled without being caught. But its significance is larger than its scale, because it came after three months without a reported attack in the district, and because it was aimed at a routine checkpoint on a road that matters to the whole Valley. The meaning of the attack will become clearer as the investigation proceeds, but some of its implications are already visible.

7.1 A Test of the Security Gains

The security situation in Jammu and Kashmir has improved in recent years, by the government’s own account and by the figures for the number of attacks and the number of deaths. The number of terrorist incidents has fallen, the number of local men joining militant groups has fallen, and the security forces have killed or arrested many of the commanders who led the groups. But the improvement is fragile, and it depends on the security forces being able to prevent attacks, not just respond to them. An attack like the one at Akhran, in which two men fired at a checkpoint and got away, is a reminder that the groups are still capable of mounting an attack, even if they are weaker than they were. It is also a reminder that the improvement in the security situation has not removed the risk to the men on the ground. The three months without an attack in Kulgam were a sign of progress, but the attack on Wednesday shows that the progress can be reversed by a single incident. The security forces will now be under pressure to catch the attackers, because catching them would show that the attack was an exception rather than the start of a new round of violence, and failing to catch them would leave the district’s people wondering whether more attacks are coming. The attack is therefore a test of the security gains, and the outcome of the search operation will be read as a measure of how strong those gains really are.

7.2 The Days Ahead

The days ahead will be shaped by the search operation and by the investigation. If the attackers are caught quickly, the attack will be seen as a failure, and the district will return to the relative calm of the last three months. If they are not caught, the search operation will continue, and the disruption it causes will grow, and the people of the area will begin to ask how long the operation will last. The NIA’s forensic examination will take time, and its findings may not be made public for weeks. The condition of Constable Chandru, the most seriously injured of the three, will be watched closely, because his recovery or otherwise will shape how the attack is remembered. The political response will also develop, with more leaders condemning the attack and the government being asked what it is doing to prevent further attacks. The festival that the Lieutenant Governor opened on Wednesday will continue, and the contrast between the festival and the attack will be a reminder of the two faces of Kashmir: a place with a rich culture and a long history, and a place where violence can return without warning. The coming days will show whether the attack was an isolated incident or the beginning of something more, and the answer will depend on what the investigators find and on whether the attackers are caught.

8. What Remains Unconfirmed and What to Watch Next

Much about the attack is still unknown, and the unknowns matter. The identity of the attackers, the group they belong to, the weapon they used and the route they took are all still being established, and the reports that have named a suspect have done so on the basis of unnamed sources rather than evidence. The section that follows sets out what is still unconfirmed, and what to watch for in the days ahead.

8.1 The Open Questions

Several questions remain open. The first is the identity of the attackers. No official has named them, no group has claimed responsibility, and the suspicion that they were associates of Mohammed Lateef Bhat rests on unnamed sources and has not been confirmed. The second is the exact sequence of the attack. One account says the attackers emerged from trees, another says they were on a motorcycle, and the two accounts have not been reconciled. The third is the condition of the injured men. The official account says one man is slightly seriously injured and two are stable, but an early report said two were in a critical condition, and the difference has not been explained. The fourth is whether the attackers are still in the area. The search operation has been running for nearly 17 hours without an arrest or a contact, which suggests that the attackers may have left the area or found shelter, but it does not prove it. The fifth is whether the attack was timed to coincide with the Lieutenant Governor’s visit to the district. The visit and the attack happened on the same day, but no evidence has been published to show that the attackers knew about the visit or chose the day because of it. The sixth is what the NIA’s forensic examination will find. The team was due to visit the site on Thursday, and its findings will not be known for days or weeks. Each of these questions will be answered in time, but none of them has been answered yet, and any report that presents them as settled is going beyond what the evidence supports.

8.2 The Bottom Line

Three Central Reserve Police Force personnel were injured on Wednesday afternoon when gunmen opened fire on their checkpoint at Akhran, near Mir Bazar, in the Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir. One of the three, Constable Santosh Chandru, was in a critical condition with wounds to his abdomen and spine, and the other two were stable. A large search operation was still under way on Thursday morning, and a team of the National Investigation Agency was due to visit the site to collect samples and examine forensic evidence. No group had claimed responsibility, and the identity of the attackers had not been established, although investigators were examining a suspected link to a local commander of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba. The attack was the first reported terrorist incident in Kulgam since two labourers were killed there in August, and it came on a day when the territory’s Lieutenant Governor was visiting the district to open a cultural festival. The coming days will provide the answers, and until they do, the attack stands as a reminder that the security gains in Kashmir are real but fragile, and that the men who guard its roads and bridges are still at risk. The Kulgam CRPF attack, the three injured personnel, and the search operation now under way in November 2026 will be watched closely in the days ahead.

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