Eight security personnel — four policemen and four Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers — were martyred while at least two fidayeen of Jaish-e-Mohammed were shot dead in a day-long gunfight inside the District Police lines at Pulwama in South Kashmir, around 35 kilometers from here.
The pre-dawn attack, one of the most lethal in recent months, continued till late in the evening as security forces suspect presence of more terrorists on the premises. At least six security men have been injured in the attack.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti condemned the attack.
A senior police officer said that bodies of two terrorists have been recovered from the encounter site. The expansive police lines situated on the outskirts of Pulwama town in the vicinity of District Magistrate’s office houses residences of top police officers and hundreds of police and paramilitary personnel put up in the quarters, many of them with families.
Director General of Police Shesh Paul Vaid refused to call the attack as ‘security lapse’ even as police and security grid have no inkling of how the attackers sneaked into the heavily guarded police lines to launch the attack before the crack of dawn.
Sources said the fidayeen were spotted when they opened fire on a police and CRPF party that was readying to move out for an anti-insurgency operation at 5.15 am. In the first bout of fire, sources said, three CRPF men and a policeman got injured. They were immediately evacuated to 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar cantonment.
Additional Director General (ADG) CRPF SN Srivastava said that the attackers did not make “forcible entry into the DPl”. This indicates that the Jaish militants might have used some other innovative method to get entry into the premises. The security forces are investigating as to whether the terrorists received internal help to get into the DPl premises.
The first attack was launched on a residential building which was immediately cordoned off. The attackers later took positions in three separate multi-storey blocks. The Army was later called to assist in the flush-out operation.
In Srinagar, Commander of Srinagar based XV corps lt Gen JS Sandhu said that terrorists entered the family quarters and targeted the security forces. “There were a lot of families there. In the initial action, we lost one J&K police constable and two CRPF personnel. Thereafter, we have brought the families out of those blocks,” Sandhu said. He denied that any hostage situation was created at the attack site. There were reports that two special police officials (SPOs) whose bodies were recovered from a building block, had been taken hostage by the militants. Their bodies were recovered during the combing operation.
Two slain CRPF men were identified as Constable Jaswant Singh of 183 battalion, a resident of Shekhupur Mari Gurugram, Haryana and head constable Dhanawade Ravindra Baban of Satara in Maharashtra. The deceased cop was identified as Constable Imtiyaz Ahmad, a resident of south Kashmir’s Qazigund area.
The DGP said that there was no security lapse. “You can’t prevent (fidayeen strike) if somebody is ready to die,” Vaid said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman of banned JeM outfit called up the office of a local news agency to claim responsibility for the attack. This is the first major attack carried out by the JeM in the area. Earlier, the Hizbul Mujahideen was carrying out strikes in the district. The JeM, sources said, has begun spreading its influence and cadre base in the South Kashmir region.
The authorities snapped mobile internet services in Pulwama district after the attack began. The area remained under cordon till late in the night.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti strongly condemned the killing of J&K Police and CRPF jawans. In a statement, Mufti said violence of last three decades or more has taken a heavy toll on the people of the State in terms of death and destruction, tearing apart the social fabric, inflicting massive economic, academic and other losses besides the irreparable loss of human lives.
The Chief Minister paid rich tributes to the slain jawans of the two organisations. She also conveyed her sympathies to the bereaved families of the jawans.