Eight Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel, including two officers, and two militants were killed in one of the worst highway attacks at Pampore town, 12 kilometres south from here on Saturday afternoon. Sources said that 25 CRPF personnel have been wounded in the attack, some of them critically.
Eyewitnesses said that militants waylaid a six-vehicle CRPF convoy when it reached a highway curve near Tanchibagh at Namlabal in Pampore town around 4: 45 pm and opened indiscriminate fire on a bus filled with CRPF personnel. The troops of 161-battalion CRPF were returning from Panthachowk area in Srinagar after going through a day-long practice session.
“The attack was sudden, quick and intense,” a police officer said. Two attackers were quickly neutralised in the retaliatory action, sources said.
The identity of slain militants suspected to be lashkar-e-Tayyeba cadre, is being ascertained.
Sources said that almost everyone in the bus that came under the attack received bullet injuries. The wounded personnel were immediately rushed to hospital where eight of them succumbed to injuries.
The CRPF spokesman, Bhavesh Kumar Choudhary said that two militants were killed in the exchange of gunfire. Unconfirmed sources said that two attackers managed to flee the encounter site in a car towards Srinagar.
“I saw a CRPF vehicle frantically manoeuvring a traffic jam at Panthachowk while escorting injured personnel to hospital,” a college professor told The Pioneer.
This is the second highway attack on security forces on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway during this month. Earlier, on June 3, Hizbul Mujahideen militants ambushed a Border Security Force convoy at Bijbehara town in south Kashmir, 45 kilometres from here. Three BSF men were killed in the attack.
A leT spokesman Abdullah Ghaznavi while claiming responsibility for the attack said that 13 CRPF personnel were killed in the attack that lasted for one hour. “These martyrs are the sons of Kashmiri nation,” Ghaznavi said.
Sources said that flow of traffic came to a grinding halt after the attack as people went helter-skelter when the exchange of fire was taking place.
Governor NN Vohra and Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti have strongly condemned the attack.
“The only purpose of such blood-spattered acts of violence is to add to the tragedies and miseries of the people and subvert the Government’s efforts aimed at bringing permanent peace and prosperity to Jammu & Kashmir,” the Chief Minister said in a statement.
Mehbooba said the elements inimical to interests of Jammu & Kashmir have always tried to derail the peace efforts and the latest militant strike at Pampore was again aimed at subverting the peace and development initiatives launched by the Government.
Mehbooba, while expressing solidarity with the bereaved families of the security forces personnel, prayed for early recovery of the injured including civilians.
Governor NN Vohra also conveyed his sympathy to the families of those killed and wished early recovery to the injured personnel.
Describing the attack as the handiwork of elements trying to disturb the peaceful environs of the State, Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said, “We should all collectively work to defeat these forces who are trying to perpetuate the cult of violence and destruction.”