The 48-hour-long armed stand-off outside Jammu and Kashmir’s highway town of Pampore ended on Monday afternoon with Army troops killing all the three militants holed up in a multi-storey building.
Officials said the slain men were “exceptionally motivated and highly trained terrorists” most probably belonging to the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
While the encounter was still underway thousands of residents took to the streets in neighbourhood areas to chant pro-freedom slogans. As they tried to relocate to the encounter site the police fired teargas canisters and pellet guns to push them back. Fifteen protesters and five policemen were injured in clashes.
The Army, in its final assault against the militants, fired mortar bombs and rockets at the building. The main target of the light artillery fire was the top floor of the main block at J&K Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JK EDI) campus at Sempora, Pampore, about 16 km south of here, to which the three militants had been restricted by Army troops, including crack teams from its special forces, earlier. The Army also used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) fitted with cameras to track the positions of the militants.
The corpses of the militants were retrieved from the debris during a combing operation by the security forces. Their identities are being ascertained, officials said. In Delhi, CRPF D-G Prakash Mishra said they appeared to be Lashkar-e-Tayyaba cadres. So far no militant group active in Kashmir has claimed responsibility.
The troops stormed the building around Sunday noon and then, using their highly specialised combat skills, began securing it floor by floor, room by room. The campus is spread over 10,000 sq. feet and the main block where the militants were entrenched has more than 50 classrooms and office chambers, besides several halls, storerooms and washrooms.
However, in their attempt to overrun the building, three Armymen — 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 CRPF convoy, killing two jawans and injuring nine others. In the subsequent shootout, an employee of the JK EDI, Abdul Gani Mir, 48, was killed.
The gunmen then entrenched themselves in the main block of the campus. They were quickly surrounded by security forces from the Army, CRPF and the J&K police’s counter-insurgency Special Operations Group.
The firing, which had stopped at nightfall on Sunday, resumed with first light on Monday. Earlier the officials had said that the militants were using “shrewd dodging” tactics against combat forces and used their ammunition judiciously. Officials said a total of 16 security personnel were injured.
Explaining the delay in flushing out the militants, officials said they were advantageously positioned in the main concrete multi-storey block. After the troops stormed the building, the militants scattered and then started moving from room to room and floor to floor.
However, before the final assault was launched, a senior Army commander told reporters that it was in no hurry to flush out the militants as the main aim was to avoid further casualties to security forces. The Srinagar-based Chinar Corps’ GOC, Lt. Gen. Satish Dua, said, “There is no time limit. There is no hurry. Our main purpose is to make sure that we do not have any more casualties. We will take as long as it takes to clear the building.” He also said the J&K EDI is a vast campus and that specialised forces were required.
Meanwhile, about 20 persons, including five policemen, were injured as massive protests by residents erupted in Pampore town on Monday. Irate crowds chanting pro-freedom slogans and defying curfew-like restrictions imposed on the highway town and its neighbourhood to dissuade protests made repeated attempts to relocate to the encounter site. Overnight, and also during the day on Monday, mosque loudspeakers broadcast “revolutionary” songs and women sang folk songs and “wanwon” while the men were chanting pro-azadi slogans in their attempt to encourage the militants.
Witnesses said the police and CRPF fired teargas canisters and pellet guns to push back the marching protesters who responded by hurling rocks at them. The protesters burned used tyres along the stretch of the Srinagar-Jammu highway passing through the town.
The J&K police had on February 18 issued an advisory to the public asking them to stay away from the sites of encounters between security forces and militants. It said CrPC Sec. 144 immediately comes into force at and around encounter sites and asked civilians to stay at least two kilometres away from the 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 10 other people injured when security forces fired live ammunition after sections of protesters 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 meetings with the police, Army and other law-enforcing authorities to discuss the fallout and issued them strict instructions to exercise restraint while dealing with such situations.
The Kashmir Valley has of late been witnessing protests by 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 militants to escape, or at least receive encouragement. The massive attendance at militants’ funerals is also a routine occurrence now, a fact that has got security officials worried.
