Amid the deaths, there was a new life. As the death toll of Armymen in the terror attack on their Sunjwan camp rose to five on Sunday, doctors laboured through the night to save the life of a pregnant woman, injured during the fidayeen strike, who gave birth to a baby girl.
According to an incident report compiled by the State police, “Twenty-four-year-old Shahzada Khan, wife of Rifleman Nazir Ahmed from Budgam, was shot in the lower back inside family quarters. Writhing in pain as she was struggling, elite commandos of the Indian Army stormed her family quarter and safely evacuated her to the military hospital in Satwari. She later delivered a baby girl, weighing 2.5 kg through a C-section operation.”
Both the mother and the baby are stable, Defence PRO in Jammu lt-Col Devendra Anand confirmed.
The arrival of a newborn under these circumstances was greeted by enthusiastic social media users on different platforms. Greetings and the choicest blessings were showered on the newborn. Many others wished speedy recovery to the brave mother and labelled her ‘real braveheart’.
Jawans of the Indian Army, meanwhile, continued their operations to flush out holed- up terrorists inside Sunjwan military station for the second consecutive day. The Army authorities were cautiously sanitising the huge campus to avoid any further collateral damage.
The total death toll in the ongoing operations rose to six on Sunday with the recovery of bodies of three more jawans and one civilian, father of a soldier. In addition, 10 people have been injured of which six are women and children, including the pregnant woman.
The deceased soldiers have been identified as Havaldar Habib-Ullah Qureshi, Naik Manzoor Ahmad,lance Naik Mohd Iqbal and his father.
Two Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs) were killed in the daring terrorist strike on Saturday.
Army chief General Bipin Rawat, who landed here late on Saturday night, was also supervising the anti-terror operations. After his landing here in Jammu he was briefed by the local commanders about their strategy to deal with the situation. A high-level team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) also landed in Jammu and visited the Sunjwan military station.
The Defence spokesperson issued a statement, saying, “In the ongoing operations at Sunjwan military station, three terrorists have so far been killed with the nutralisation of one more terrorist today. The third terrorist was also found wearing Army combat dress and was heavily armed similar to the other two terrorists killed previously. AK-56 rifles, under barrel grenade launcher (UBGl), ammunition and grenades have been recovered from them”, he added.
During the sanitising of residential quarters by the Indian Army commandos’ bodies of one more JCO, two jawans and an elderly man, father of a solider have been recovered, all of whom were killed by the terrorists in the initial stage on Saturday.
A group of heavily armed terrorists, believed to be cadre of Jaish-e-Mohammad, had earlier stormed the Sunjwan Military station in the wee hours of Saturday from rear side of the military station.
The Defence PRO had earlier confirmed the heavily armed terrorists were cadre of Jaish-e-Mohammad. Army had earlier recovered arms and ammunition along with Jaish-e-Mohammad flag from their belongings.
Senior security officials believed the terrorists were most likely foreign terrorists. Inspector General of Police Jammu range Dr SD Singh Jamwal said thorough investigations would further reveal the details in the coming days. He said an FIR has been registered and investigation has been taken up in the terror attack case.