A day after fidayeen attacked the Nagrota-based Army base in which seven soldiers were martyred, a 80-metre-long cross-border tunnel was detected by the Border Security Force (BSF) along the International Border in Samba on Wednesday morning. This find comes on the heels of the recovery of a huge cache of arms, chained IEDs and hard-to-detect liquid explosives from the three terrorists who were killed by the BSF jawans in Samba on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, even as the Indian Army was grappling with the enormity of the damage caused by the heavily-armed suicide squad inside 166 Field Regiment located on the periphery of Nagrota-based 16 Corps headquarters, the Army recovered documents written in Urdu that had Afzal Guru’s name on them.
This discovery, that the attack might have been carried out by cadre of the Afzal Guru Squad, came on a day when the Army chief was on a visit to access the damage done in the Nagrota attack.
Addressing the media on the eve of the BSF’s 51st Raising Day in New Delhi, Director-General KK Sharma said, “The three terrorists killed in Samba in Jammu on Tuesday might have crawled through an 80-metre-long tunnel under farm lands to cross the IB.”
KK Sharma said, “After the operation in Samba at the Chamliyal border outpost was over, we checked the fence and there was no breach. Then on Wednesday morning, we detected a small 2x2 metre tunnel. We had deployed depth nakas across the fence and hence we could detect and neutralise the three terrorists. The tunnel was found in a field where farming is done and the soil is soft. The tunnel is about 75-80 metres from the IB and about 35-40 metres from the fence.”
In Jammu, Special DG, BSF Arun Kumar told reporters late on Tuesday evening that the heavily-armed terrorists wanted to carry out a chain of terror attacks by blowing up running trains and tracks with chained IEDs and liquid explosives.
He said apart from five bottles of trinitroglycerin, three AK-47s, 20 full magazines, 517 bullets, an 8mm pistol, 20 grenades and a GPS set were also recovered.
On Wednesday Arun Kumar, IG BSF Jammu Frontier DK Upadhyay, DGP J&K Police K Rajendra and senior Intelligence agency officers visited the tunnel site and took stock of the situation. The BSF had deployed a JCB machine on the spot to carry out further digging in the area to rule out the possibility of similar tunnels in the vicinity.
The DG said the BSF would take up the matter with Pakistan Rangers, but added that due to increased hostilities, the other side is not “getting in touch” for quite some time now.
Sharma said the BSF had strong inputs that infiltration could be attempted from around the IB area and “that is why we were in a position to effectively neutralise the three.”
He said there are inputs of a “grave threat” to security establishments and hence the security has been beefed up. Sharma said the Nagrota attack was “separate” and it was part of the investigation to find out if it had any connection with the Samba terror bid.
Meanwhile, huge recoveries made by the Army from the possession of the terrorists killed in the Nagrota attack revealed that the terror strike was possibly carried out by the cadre of Afzal Guru Squad as one of the documents recovered had Guru’s name on it. “The first installment in revenge for killing Afzal Guru,” said the text in Urdu.
Guru was convicted for the attack on Parliament in 2011 and subsequently hanged in a Delhi prison in 2013.
The involvement of an over ground workers who may have aided the fidayeen squad is not ruled out as most of the items recovered were purchased locally and were ‘Made in India.’
Meanwhile, a day after the heavily-armed fidayeen exposed the vulnerability of the 16 Corps headquarters Indian Army Chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag arrived here to take stock of the prevailing security situation.
During his brief stay in Nagrota he was briefed by the top commanders about the terror strike inside the artillery unit.
Ahead of Suhag’s arrival combing operations were launched with the first light to clear the area.
‘Blinds’ (unexploded shells) were destroyed at the site of the terror attack by a bomb disposal team during the combing operation.