J&K encounter: 48-hour long gunbattle ends, Army kills all 3 militants

While bodies of two terrorists have been recovered, a search operation is on to find the third body.

Srinagar

: All the three militants holed up in a multi-storey building at an official campus outside Jammu and Kashmir’s highway town of Pampore, 16-km south of capital Srinagar, have been killed in the final assault launched by Army early on Monday.

The troops had fired mortar bombs and rockets on the edifice. The light artillery fire was aimed mainly at the top floor of the main block at J&K Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JK EDI) campus where the militant trio had been restricted to by Army troops including crack teams from its Para Special Force.

The corpses of the slain militants have been brought out of the smouldering building. Firing has stopped and the combing operation by the security forces is underway.

The troops stormed the building around noon on Sunday and then using their highly specialised combat skills began securing the floors one after one.

However, in their attempt to overrun the building, two Army captains Pawan Kumar and Tushar Mahajan and corporal Om Prakash laid down their lives. Earlier on Saturday the militants believed to be one local and two foreigners had ambushed a Srinagar-bound convoy of CRPF killing two jawans and and injuring nine others. In the subsequent shootout, an employee of the JK EDI Abdul Gani Mir, 48, also lost his life.

The gunmen then entrenched themselves in the main block of the campus. They were quickly surrounded by security forces from Army, CRPF and J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG).

Police officials here confirmed that the trio has been cornered in the top floor of the building. Heavy firing and shelling is underway and loud booms are heard at a distance.

The firing which had stopped at nightfall on Sunday resumed with the first light on Monday. Earlier the officials had said that the militants were using 'shrewd' and 'dodging' tactics against combat forces and have used their ammunition judiciously. Before the troops stormed the premises around noon on Sunday, the militants were advantageously positioned in the main concrete multi-storey block at the campus. After the troops stormed the building, the militants scattered and then started moving from room to room and floor to floor.

Army also used Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) fitted with cameras to know the position of militants.

Meanwhile, about twenty persons have been injured as massive protests by residents have erupted in the town of Pampore. Irate crowds while chanting pro-freedom slogans have after defying curfew-like restrictions imposed on the highway town and its neighbourhood earlier to dissuade protests made repeated attempts to relocate to the encounter site.

Witnesses said that police and CRPF fired teargas canisters to push back the marching protesters who responded by hurling rocks at them. The protesters have burned used tyres along the stretch of the Srinagar-Jammu highway passing through the town.

Jammu and Kashmir police on Thursday issued an advisory to the public asking them to stay away from the sites of encounters between security forces and militants. It said 144 CrPC immediately comes into force at and around encounter sites and asked civilians to stay, at least, two kilometres away from encounter site so that they don’t “fall prey to a stray bullet”.

This came days after two youth including a woman were killed and ten other people were injured when security forces fired live ammunition after sections of protesters while chanting pro-azadi slogans turned violent near an encounter site in the State’s southern district of Pulwama.

As the incident evoked widespread anger across the Valley and the authorities had to impose curfew-like restrictions at several places to hold back protests, Governor N.N. Vohra held a series of meeting with police, Army and other law enforcing authorities to discuss the fallout and issued them strict instruction to exercise restraint while dealing with such situations.

Of late, Kashmir Valley has been witnessing protests by surging crowds around the sites of encounters between security forces and militants. Also, people have in several instances while chanting pro-freedom slogans targeted the security forces with stones in their attempts to create situations which could be seized by holed up militants to escape or, at least, receive encouragement. The massive attendance in militant funerals is also a routine occurrence now, a fact that has got security officials worried.