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Srinagar, Apr 30 (PTI) Two Hizbul Mujahideen militants, including Sameer Ahmed Bhat alias 'Sameer Tiger', were on Monday gunned down and a civilian killed in an encounter in south Kashmir's Pulwama district, police said.



Two armymen also suffered bullet injuries in the encounter that took place in Pulwama's Drabgam area, police officials said

Acting on an intelligence tip-off that militants were holed up inside a house, a joint team of personnel from the Army, the state police's special task force and the CRPF cordoned off the area

As the search operation closed in on the house, security personnel received a barrage of bullets in which the two armymen were injured, officials said.

The civilian was killed when security forces were trying to chase away a stone pelting mob, they said.

Civilians wanted to throng the encounter site so that the militants could run away, an official said

Around noon, security personnel, who were fighting stone pelting from the civilians, fired at heavily at the house, thereby creating an explosion, officials said.

About an hour later, the first militant, identified as Aaquib Mushtaq, was killed. He was a local resident belonging to Pulwama's Rajpora area.

Around 2.15 pm, Sameer Tiger, who is alleged to have carried out several political and civilian killings in the Pulwama area, was gunned down, the officials added.

Sameer Tiger had been involved in militancy since April 2016.

One of the injured is a Major-rank officer, who has hit by a bullet in the arm. Both the injured soldiers were evacuated to the Army's 92 base hospital for treatment, the officials said

The civilian killed in the clashes was identified as Shahid Ahmad Dar, they said, adding that the circumstances in which the 25-year-old youth was killed are being ascertained.