High alert has been sounded along the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway and Katra base camp of Mata Vaishno Devi shrine after three heavily armed terrorists,travelling in a Srinagar bound truck, managed to gave a slip to the security forces near famous picnic spot of Jhajjar Kotli early Wednesday morning.
Before vanishing in the thick forested area these terrorists opened indiscriminate firing on the security forces injuring one of the employees of Sericulture department. Driver of the truck and his accomplice were both taken in to custody by the police from the spot.
Eyewitness reports claimed the incident was reported around 8 am near Sai cafeteria located close to famous picnic spot of Jhajjar Kotli.
Traffic on the busy stretch of the national highway was halted for several hours leading to long jams on both sides of the only surface link connecting Kashmir valley with the rest of the country.
Police said the three terrorists were travelling in a truck bearing registration number JK03F 1476, registered in the office of Regional Transport Office, Anantnag. Police also recovered a bag containing 1 AK-47 rifles, 3 magazines and grenades.Two magazines were later recovered during the combing operations.
A close relative of a cafeteria owner present at the time of firing told reporters, "The truck driver had placed an order to pack three plates of break fast and serve two separate plates of breakfast at the cafeteria. But before he could break the bread a police party stopped nearby parked truck for random checking of vehicles. As one of the police jawans was about to lift the tarpaulin hiding terrorists opened fire and jumped out of the truck". As chaos prevailed people present at the spot ran for cover.
Eye witness reports claimed the three terrorists, one of them dressed in Pathan suit while two others in Pant shirt, wearing pithu bags, ran towards the thickly forested area after which reinforcements were rushed in and high alert was sounded in the area. Army authorities also pressed sniffer dogs and drone cameras in the area to track down the hiding terrorists.
The local population in the area were also alerted by the security forces to stay indoors and not to respond to door knocks by any unknown person. The security check points along the highway and in nearby Katra township were beefed up to prevent any terror attack in the area.
Inspector General of Police, Jammu zone Dr SD Singh Jamwal who visited the area late Wednesday evening told reporters, " joint teams of security forces including jawans of the Indian army, CRPF and State police were combing the area to track down the hiding terrorists. This is a challenging task for us as we have to minimise the collateral damage while neutralising these hiding terrorists", he added.
IG, Jammu police while responding to a straight question about the whereabouts of these terrorists said, thorough investigations were going on the basis of interrogation of driver and his accomplice. I cannot divulge further details or the identity of the arrested persons, he added.
He, however, confirmed the fact that the terrorists were heading towards Srinagar. Unconfirmed reports claimed these terrorists could have sneaked inside the Indian territory from across the International border and had cracked a deal with the Srinagar bound truck driver to drop them in Srinagar. The truck driver, according to police was coming from New Delhi along with supply of JK Wall putty and may have been directed to drop these three terrorists in Kashmir valley.