Jammu, Jul 16 (IANS): Four army personnel, including an officer, who were critically injured during a nocturnal gunfight with terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district, succumbed to injuries on Tuesday, officials said.

Officials earlier said that five security personnel, including an army officer and a policeman, were critically injured in a gunfight with terrorists in a forest area in Doda during the night intervening July 15 and July 16.

Of them, all four army personnel succumbed to injuries while the policeman is battling for life.

"The encounter had started after the troops of Rashtriya Rifles and Special Operations Group (SOG) of Police launched a CASO (Cordon & Search Operation) at Dhari Gate Urarbagi in Desa forest area around 7.45 p.m. yesterday (Monday). Four army personnel, including an officer, and a policeman were injured in the exchange of fire which initially lasted for over 20 minutes," officials said.

"The operation against the terrorists is going on in the area," they added.

Doda is one of those heavily forested hilly districts of Jammu division where terrorists are believed to be operating on a hit-and-run strategy.

To deal with this modus operandi of the terrorists, the Ministries of Defence and Home Affairs recently decided at a high-level security review meeting that the densely forested mountainous areas of Jammu division will be manned by the army and CRPF.