Pampore: Operation against holed up militants suspended until tomorrow
Srinagar: The operation against militants holed up in a multi-storey government building at Sempora on the outskirts of Jammu and Kashmir’s highway town of Pampore, about 16-km south of summer capital Srinagar, since Monday morning was suspended again at nightfall on Tuesday to avoid casualties.
The Army which was being assisted by other security forces had in the day-time on both these days-Monday and Tuesday- fired mortars and other projectiles to eliminate two to three militants who have taken up positions at vantage points on the upper floors of the 7-storey edifice in the sprawling campus of the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI), making it tough for them to obliterate them. The building suffered damage in the firing and shelling and flames and thick smoke could be seen billowing from it from about 500 yards where reporters were stopped by the Army and police officials.
The operation to flush the militants out suspended at nightfall also on Monday to avoid casualties was resumed with the first light on Tuesday when the security forces launched a fresh offensive against the militants. Earlier, the security forces reportedly seized the boat which was allegedly used by the militants to cross River Jhelum from one bank to the other before entering the JKEDI campus spread over more than 60 acres of land and having several imposing concrete buildings from the rear (river) side on Monday morning. “A boat believed to have been used by terrorists to cross the river from Rakh Shalina side to Sempora has been seized and its owner detained for questioning,” a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity said.
The officials said that after getting inside the campus on Monday morning, the militants set on fire a few mattresses inside a hostel room to attract the attention of the security forces including a road-opening-party who arrived within minutes of the smoke emanating from the building. There were, however, no fire tenders around, witnesses said. Officials said that the fire tenders were rushed to the area from Srinagar and Pampore but they were not allowed to enter the building due to security reasons.
Since the JKEDI like other institutions is closed for more than three months because of the unrest triggered by the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahedin commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani no student or faculty or staff member was present when the militants barged into the campus at about 6.30 am on Monday.
The Army’s Special Forces rushed to the spot from nearby Badami Bagh cantonment where the headquarters of 15 (Chinar) Corps are located. Also, the paramilitary forces personnel and the members of the CRPF and J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) joined them to encircle the campus.
In the initial exchange of fire, a soldier was injured in foot. Heavy exchange of fire continued between the two sides till the night fall. Amid intermittent firing from the holed up militants, the security forces used Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), Mortar bombs, Light Machine Guns and small arms in their attempt to flush out the militants but it did not yield the desired result. Army sources here said that two to three floors of the 7-storey building had already been 'sanitized' before the operation was put on hold at nightfall on Monday. “It is an inch-by-inch and step-by-step kind of control-gaining operation to avoid casualties as the militants are well positioned inside the building,” said one of the officers.
Before suspending operation at the night fall on Monday, floodlights and other equipment were brought in and used to keep a vigil at and around the campus to prevent the militants from escaping during the night. These were switched on again soon after the sunset on Tuesday, reporters covering the standoff said. However, all the security personnel involved in the operation like on Monday evening were asked to stay positioned behind these broad-beamed high intensity lights to avoid being seen and targeted by the militants. A similar standoff at the campus had led to the killing of three Army officials and an equal number of militants in fighting about eight months ago.
On February 20 this year, ten CRPF jawans were wounded, two of them fatally, in a militant ambush on a force convoy just outside the JKEDI campus. The gunmen had after targeting the Srinagar-bound convoy of the CRPF with gunfire fled into the campus which was quickly surrounded by the security forces and a gun battle between the two sides ensued.
Abdul Gani Mir, 48, a gardener at the campus, injured in initial firing had died in hospital. As many as 115 students, faculty members and other staff trapped inside the campus were evacuated to safer places, 25 of them from the main block where the militants had taken up positions. The armed stand-off continued for more than 48 hours during which pro-militant and pro-aazadi protests break out in the town of Pampore and its neighbourhood. Police used batons and tear smoke to break these, leading to clashes.
Three Army officials including Captains Pawan Kumar and Tushar Mahajan and corporal Om Prakash laid down their lives while fighting militants. The standoff ended with the killing of all the three holed up militants on February 22. The JKEDI infrastructure including the main block suffered damage as the Army in its final assault against the militants fired mortar bombs and rockets on the edifice. The main target of the light artillery fire was the top floor of the main block at JKEDI.
The Army troops including crack teams from its Para Special Force took part in the operation during which Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) fitted with cameras to know the position of militants were also used. The exercise is likely to be repeated on Tuesday, official sources here said.
The JKEDI being a huge complex with imposing and concrete blocks, it took the security forces more than 48 hours to neutralise the holed up militants and not before losing three officers in the gun fight which received wide coverage within and outside the country last time. This could be the reason why the militants have chosen the campus again for this kind of exploit, said the security forces officials here.
