The civilian who died in the J&K encounter on Saturday was Abdul Gani Mir, 48, who worked as a gardener at the campus. He was injured in the initial firing and died in hospital later, police and hospital sources said.
While an armed standoff in now underway, 115 students, faculty members and other staff who were trapped inside the campus have been evacuated to safer places, 25 of them from the main block where the militants have taken up positions.
Officials said that there are possibly no more civilians left within the campus and reinforcements from CRPF have been joined by members of the J&K police’s counter-insurgency special operations group to take on the militants.
A column of the Army is on standby. However, officials said that it is the CRPF which is leading the operation against militants and that the final assault against the militants is likely to be launched with first light on Sunday.
Some of the students and faculty members who were earlier trapped inside the main block of the campus after the outbreak of the gunbattle told reporters that the militants asked them to leave as they apparently did not want any harm to come to them.
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 first started outside it.
