RAWALAKOT, Azad Kashmir — The clock was nudging midnight when the rattle of automatic fire broke the still air above this quiet hill town. Within minutes the slopes behind Khaigala bazaar, normally dotted with dim porch lights, flashed blue-white under security‐force flares. By dawn four men, all on the federal wanted list, lay dead and a small community was trying to piece together what had happened while the rest of the country slept.
“We intercepted radio chatter two days ago,” said one plain-clothes officer, tipping his cap lower when he noticed a phone camera pointed his way. “The group was scouting a soft target. We couldn’t let them dig in.”
Residents tell a simpler story. First came the hum of helicopters, then a sharp order blasted through loud-hailers telling everyone to stay indoors. Doors slammed; lights snapped off. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes of gun-fire followed, punctuated by one hard explosion that rattled tin roofs as far as Hussain Kot. Then silence. Dogs barked for another hour.
At first light, soldiers fanned out along the pine-covered spur above town, collecting shell casings and mapping the site. Reporters were kept fifty yards back, though one teenage vlogger managed to film a short clip of burned bedding and a homemade detonator half-buried under loose soil. Officially, investigators recovered two assault rifles, a Chinese-made grenade, half a dozen magazines and what they called “detailed reconnaissance notes.” Off the record, an officer said the files pointed to an attempted hit on a police convoy scheduled to roll south later this week.
The identities of the militants have not been released, but security sources insist every man on the ground last night carried a bounty and a long paper trail linking him to an outlawed faction active on both sides of the Line of Control. One of the dead, they claim, arranged safe-houses; another specialised in IEDs. All four, they say, had slipped into Rawalakot only 48 hours earlier.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a three-line statement before breakfast, calling the raid “swift, clinical and absolutely necessary.” Army headquarters echoed the praise, adding that further operations were “already in motion.” On social media, the tone ranged from applause to weary resignation. “Relieved but not surprised,” one Rawalakot shop-owner tweeted. “We knew something was brewing; the faces were new and too quiet.”
For locals, the immediate concern is simple safety. Extra checkpoints now dot the Muzaffarabad road. Rangers are walking narrow lanes that usually see only sleepy chai stalls at dusk. People are talking in half-whispers, glancing over shoulders before finishing sentences. The fear is less about last night and more about what might follow. Militants seldom leave debts unpaid.
Still, there is a measure of pride. “Rawalakot didn’t blink,” said Ahmed Rasool, a teacher who lives a stone’s throw from the cordoned area. He pointed to his cracked front window, shrugged and smiled the smile of a man who has seen worse. “You protect home,” he said. “That’s all.”
Security officials urge the public to stay alert, note unfamiliar faces and keep helpline numbers handy. Few here need the reminder. After last night’s thudding echo of gunfire, nobody in this town is likely to sleep with both eyes shut for a while.
