Two militants killed in J&K school siege

Srinagar: The two militants who were trapped inside a school here after killing a CRPF sub-inspector on Saturday were killed on Sunday after a gunbattle that lasted over 17 hours, in which two Armymen were also injured.

The militants had entered the Delhi Public School close to the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway on Saturday evening after attacking a CRPF party at Pantha Chowk, killing one officer and injuring a constable.

Officials said the militants targeted a stationary CRPF vehicle at Pantha Choak along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, about 6 km from Lal Chowk, at around 5.30 pm on Saturday. CRPF SI Sahab Shukla was killed and constable driver Nisar Ahmed and a civilian pedestrian were injured.

The assailants, after the attack, rushed into the nearby Delhi Public School (Srinagar) campus, which was immediately encircled by the security forces to flush them out. The officials said a gunfight broke out at around midnight between the security forces and the holed-up militants. An Army captain and two other security personnel were injured in the encounter. “There condition is stable now,” officials said.

Shortly before dawn huge blasts erupted inside the camp, which was followed by intense firing from automatic weapons. Reporters and TV crews were not allowed to go near the encounter site. Later, the security officials announced both militants have been “neutralised” and that their bodies were lying inside. J&K director-general of police Shesh Paul Vaid told reporters that the terrorists had a nefarious design to destroy school buildings in the Valley “so that our children abandon their studies”.

He said the operation at DPS (Srinagar) was carried out meticulously. “The staff and whoever was inside the building was evacuated yesterday. The cordon was maintained and we had room intervention done and got these terrorists eliminated, but with minimum collateral damage,” he said. He added that the security forces ensured the school property stayed safe “as the enemy has a nefarious design that school buildings are destroyed and children have nothing to study and ultimately abandon their studies. We will foil such attempts”.

Replying to questions, he said the operation was long as it was a huge building, with 36 rooms, halls and long corridors and balconies, and the security forces had to search and secure these one by one. The school has six more buildings.

The attack on the CRPF was claimed by the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. On Saturday evening, while the security forces were readying for the operation, a policeman accidentally fired his weapon, injuring a policeman and a CRPF jawan.

The authorities imposed security restrictions under Section 144 CrPc in the 4-km radius area and Ram Munshibagh-Sempora stretch of the Srinagar-Jammu highway to enable smooth operations and stop people from entering the encounter site. Mobile 3G and 4G Internet services were suspended and the speed of broadband on fixed landlines also brought down in the Kashmir Valley “as a precautionary measure”.