Srinagar: The gunfight between the Army and suspected militants near the border with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir’s Arnia area, which had started Thursday morning, ended at around 9.30 am on Friday with the killing of the lone surviving gunman.
“The firing has stopped and searches are underway,” an Army official said over the phone from Ranbir Singh Pura, the nearest town. Army sources said that a helicopter gunship and a couple of tanks were used to “neutralise the holed-up militant as an unmanned aerial vehicle named Tohi Viman maintained surveillance over the abandoned Army bunker in which militants had taken positions”.
An official said 12 people — five civilians, three soldiers and four militants — were killed in the 25-hour-long gun-battle. The fighting had started at 8.15 am on Thursday, a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the state where elections to the 87-member state Assembly are being held.
An earlier report has said that the Army officials also used mortar guns to destroy the abandoned Army bunker in Pind Khote village, which is located about three kilometres from the border with Pakistan and where the lone surviving militant was hiding.
The Army says the heavily-armed militant had sneaked in J&K from Pakistan, most probably during the intervening night of November 26 and 27, to carry out “fidayeen” attacks aimed at disrupting the election process but were confronted by Army troops, leading to the encounter. An Army official said that he suspected the slain militants belonged to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
Army sources said that the infiltrating militants dressed in Army uniforms had taken shelter behind a culvert but were spotted by Territorial Army jawans. One of them entered an abandoned bunker before his three accomplices were neutralised.
However, the Border Security Force has denied that the militants’ group entered the Indian side from Arnia, saying the fence along the International Border in this sector is intact. It reiterated the militants had travelled to Arnia in a car.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah had earlier said that it “cannot be a coincidence” that the Arnia attack came as Mr Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif attended the Saarc summit in Nepal. “The timing of the attack in Arnia can’t be a coincidence,” he had said on micro-blogging site Twitter.
Meanwhile, BSF accused Pakistan Rangers of violating the November 2003 ceasefire agreement by resorting to unprovoked small arms and mortar firing towards Indian positions in Arnia sub-sector, just hours after it was hit by a terror strike. “There was a few rounds of firing from Pakistani side on our positions in Pital border outpost area in Arnia sub-sector today (Friday),” a senior BSF officer said. He added that the BSF jawans, however, observed calm and did not retaliate and that there were no reports of any casualty.
But in Sialkot, Pakistani officials said that an exchange of fire was reported between Indian and Pakistani border forces along the working boundary as IB is called by Islamabad in Sialkot’s Charwah sector early on Friday. Chenab Rangers officials endorsed them saying the BSF resorted to ‘unprovoked’ firing and mortar shelling along Charwah sector but retaliatory firing by their men silenced the guns from the other side. Though no casualties were reported the villages including Charwah, Tulsipur, Bhimala and Dandeala close to the border were gripped by fear and panic, they added.
