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Four Central Reserve Police Force troopers were killed and another critically wounded when militants ambushed a CRPF road opening party in north Kashmir's Sopore town on Wednesday afternoon.
A spokesman of the CRPF said the militants, who were hiding in an orchard, fired indiscriminately from automatic weapons at the ROP, killing two troopers on the spot and critically wounding three others.
"The three wounded soldiers were immediately shifted to the local hospital in Sopore town, where two of them succumbed to their injuries. The third trooper, who is still battling for his life, has been taken to Srinagar for specialised treatment," said spokesman Prabhakar Tripathi.
Authorities immediately rushed additional deployments of police and CRPF to the spot and cordoned off the area to search for the hiding militants who, however, had escaped along with two automatic rifles of the slain troopers.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack which came a day after a blast triggered by an improvised explosive device rocked Sopore town.
Although no causalities were caused in the IED blast, it had triggered panic in Sopore, which has witnessed many militant attacks against police and paramilitary troopers.
On Tuesday, state police chief Kuldeep Khuda had said that incidents of militancy had dropped by 25 per cent in 2009 compared to the same period last year.
Khuda said security forces had gunned down over 50 commanders of various militant outfits in 2009.