Army captain killed in militant firing as stand-off in J-K's Pampore continues

22-year-old Captain Kumar was critically injured in a barrage of gun fire when he and his team stormed the building.

An Army officer was killed as he and his team tried to storm a multi-storey building in Jammu and Kashmir’s highway town of Pampore in which three heavily armed militants have been holed up since Saturday evening. The 22-year-old officer, who was from Jind district of Haryana, was the head of the Para Special Force team that carried out the operation.

Police sources said that Captain Pawan Kumar of 10 PARA was critically injured in a barrage of gun fire when he along with a group of special force personnel tried to storm the building around 2 am on Sunday. He was rushed to nearby Army hospital where he succumbed to his injuries.

The armed stand-off began when the militants targeted a CRPF convoy along the Srinagar-Jammu highway with gun fire and ran into the nearby J&K Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JK EDI) campus and took positions in the main block. Eleven CRPF jawans were wounded, two of them fatally, in the militant ambush and subsequent gun battle.

A local resident who was working as a gardener within the campus was also killed. Unofficial reports say a third CRPF jawan among the injured also died in hospital. However, a CRPF spokesman said only two of its jawans died and identified them as head constable G.D. Bhola Prasad of the 144 Battalion and constable-driver R.K. Raina of the 79 Battalion.

Meanwhile, after a few hours' lull, firing between militants and security forces has resumed, with the latter are preparing to launch final assault.

The gunmen believed to be two foreign and one local militant, were immediately surrounded by security forces after they targeted the Srinagar-bound convoy of CRPF with gunfire at Pampore.

While an armed stand-off was under way, 115 students, faculty members and other staff who were trapped inside the campus were evacuated to safer places, 25 of them from the main block where the militants took up positions.

As possibly no more civilians were left within the campus, reinforcements from CRPF were joined by members of J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SoG) to take on the holed up militants. A column of Army which were on standby too stepped in.

Some of the students and faculty members who were earlier trapped inside the main block of the campus after the outbreak of gun battle told reporters that militants asked them to leave as they apparently did not want any harm should come to them.

A police official said that after opening fire at the CRPF convoy, the militant trio fled into nearby JK EDI campus and before taking positions on ground and first floor of the main building tossed a hand grenade towards the CRPF men, causing minor injuries to some of them. This was followed by the exchange of fire between the two sides. Simultaneously efforts were started by police to evacuate the trapped students and faculty members of the Institute, he said.

Superintendant of Police (Awantipore range) Muhammad Irshad told reporters over the phone earlier that the situation was being handled “with utmost care”. He said, “Firing is going on but we are taking utmost care to ensure no harm comes to the civilians trapped inside the campus.”

A student who contacted a reporter friend on his mobile phone had said that there were more than 150 students inside the building when the firing outside it started. “On seeing gunmen rushing in, many students and some staff members sensing trouble fled towards safer locations,” the student had said. However, the computer lab staff was caught unaware and was trapped inside the building. Dozens others were trapped inside the main block, the hostel and other buildings within the campus.

Some of the students and teachers had said over the phone that they fear for their lives as massive firing between the holed up militants and security forces is on.

Former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, took to social networking site Twitter.com to say “Praying this news is wrong. All JKEDI does is train youngsters to look beyond government jobs & become entrepreneurs”.

Meanwhile, pro-militant and pro-azadi protests broke out in neighbouring town of Pampore. Police swung bamboo sticks and fired teargas canisters to break up the protests and foil attempts by groups of youth to walk towards the encounter site.

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.