After troops stormed multistorey building outside Pampore in J&K, the militants scattered and started moving from room to room and floor to floor. One of them subsequently rushed into an adjacent building and troops from the Army including crack teams from its Para Special Forces were making an all-out, tactical effort to flush him and two others out.
Reports said the security forces have already secured the ground, first and second floors of the main block after using grenades. Firing stopped with nightfall.
Besides the three Armymen, the other slain men are two CRPF jawans and a civilian who fell in Saturday’s militant ambush on a Srinagar-bound force convoy along the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Sempora, Pampore and subsequent shootout. Nine other CRPF men were injured.
An earlier report had said one of the militants was shot dead by troops as he came out of the main block at the campus firing from his AK-47 rifle, but police officials denied it.
Amid the fierce gunbattle, the building caught fire and loud explosions were heard even at a distance. “Efforts are underway to drive the terrorists out”, an Army official had said Sunday afternoon. The Army, which is leading the fight against the militants and is being assisted by the CRPF and the local police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG), also used remotely controlled camera drones in the operation. A police officer said that UAVs fitted with cameras have been pressed into service to ascertain the position of militants. Army helicopters were seen flying near the encounter site earlier in the day.
Capt. Kumar was killed as he at the head of a crack team of its Para Special Forces overnight tried to storm the main block within the campus. Police sources said he was critically injured in barrage of gunfire when he along with a group of special force personnel tried to storm the building around 2 am Sunday. He was rushed to a nearby Army hospital, where he succumbed soon. Lance Naik Prakash, who was critically injured in the militant firing, also died in hospital.
The 23-year-old Capt. Kumar, a resident of Jind district in Haryana, had joined the Army only three years ago and had recently taken part in two successful operations where three militants were killed, a defence spokesman said.
He added: “He was a very brave and intrepid officer with barely three years of service but maturity beyond his years.”
After a few hours’ lull, firing between the militants and the security forces resumed with first light on Sunday. The armed standoff began when the militants after targeting the CRPF convoy with gunfire ran into nearby JK EDI campus and took positions in the main block on Saturday afternoon. Eleven CRPF jawans were wounded, two of them fatally, in the militant ambush and subsequent gunbattle.
A local resident who was working as a gardener within the campus was also killed. Unofficial reports said a third CRPF jawan among the injured also died in hospital. However, a spokesman of the CRPF 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.
The gunmen were immediately surrounded by security forces after they targeted the CRPF convoy with gunfire and then fled into nearby JK EDI campus. While one CRPF jawan on board a bus was killed on the spot, one or two among eleven others injured in the ambush died in hospital. Abdul Gani Mir, 48, who worked as a gardener at the campus and was also injured in initial firing, died in hospital later, police and hospital sources said.
While an armed standoff 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 the CRPF were joined by members of J&K police’s counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SoG) to take on 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.
