SRINAGAR: The operation against militants holed up in a multi-storeyed government building at Sempora on the outskirts of Jammu and Kashmir’s highway town of Pampore, about 16-km south of summer capital Srinagar, was suspended at nightfall apparently to avoid collateral damage.
Earlier during the day, heavy exchange of fire continued between the two sides in which one Army jawan and a J&K policeman were injured, police sources said. But the Army confirmed only injury to one of its soldiers. They said that two to three militants stormed into the J&K Entrepreneurship Deve-lopment Institute (JKEDI) campus early Monday morning and took positions inside the main block.
A report said that the militants may have used a boat to cross Jhelum from one bank to the other before occupying the EDI building but the officials said that the matter is still under investigation and that they are trying to ascertained how they managed to reach the area.
They also said that after getting inside the campus, 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.
In the initial exchange of fire, a soldier was injured in foot. Amid intermittent firing from the holed up militants, the security forces used IEDs, Mortar bombs, Light Machine Guns and small arms in their attempt to flush out the militants.
The building suffered damage in the firing and shelling and flames and thick smoke could be seen billowing from it from about 500 yards. Sources said that two to three floors of the 7-storeyed building had been ‘sanitized’ before the operation was put on hold at nightfall.
