Guns roar after stones fall silent; 2 ultras killed

Jaish group was on way to attack Srinagar Army camp ahead of Obama visit

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Oct 21: In a joint operation, Police and Army today foiled militants’ plan to strike on a military formation in Srinagar ahead of the US President Barrack Obama’s visit to India. Troops were in search of a militant who was suspected to be hiding in Maloora village, on Srinagar-Bandipore Road, even as two heavily armed militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit, including a Myanmar national trained in Afghanistan, got killed in the day-long gunbattle in the capital city outskirts.

Director General of Police, Kuldeep Khoda, told Early Times that Police and Army carried out a joint operation at village Maloora in Srinagar outskirts, on Srinagar-Bandipore Road, on the basis of a specific information in the forenoon today. He said that all three militants of the group hiding at a residential house were believed to have died in the day-long gunbattle even as only two dead bodies had been recovered. He said that Police and troops were in search of the third militant who could be either arrested or declared dead only after recovery of his dead body.

On the basis of radio and telephone intercepts and some documents recovered from the site of the operation, DGP said that the militants killed had been identified as Yusuf Bhai and Mumtaz. He said that the Jaish group was on way to Srinagar to strike on a military camp at Haft Chinar ahead of the US President Barrack Obama’s forthcoming visit to New Delhi. Quoting a Lolab-based Jaish commander Sajjad Afghani’s radio intercept with his headquarters in Pakistan, DGP said that it was actually a group of four foreign militants, namely Qari, Saiful Islam, Afadullah and Yusuf Bhai alias Arshid Youni. According to the intercepts, Yusuf Bhai was a Burmese militant of Jaish-e-Mohammad who had been meticulously trained in IED fabrication and explosions in Afghanistan.

However, officials directly associated with the operation insisted that two separate groups of fidayeen had set out for Srinagar from Bandipore on October 18^th. According to them, six to eight foreign militants and two local guides had planned to carry out “a major strike” in Srinagar around the forthcoming visit of the US President Barrack Obama to New Delhi next fortnight. Some of the officials believed that the target was a military intelligence camp at Haft Chinar but others said that militants could well be planning a civilian massacre to attract the world attention towards Kashmir’s separatist movement. As many as 35 members of the minority Sikh community had died in a similar atmosphere during the visit of then US President, Bill Clinton, at Chittisinghpura village in Anantnag district on March 20, 2000.

Some of the militant groups have, however, issued statements earlier this week while cautioning people that the Indian security forces and agencies could enact Chittisinghpura-type carnage during Obama’s visit “to defame the freedom struggle”.

Sources said that Police and Army had laid nakas at different spots immediately after receiving information regarding passage of six to eight militants and two of their guides from Bandipore to Srinagar. A Srinagar SOG party checked vehicles for several hours at Shadipora, Sumbal, on Wednesday. It was only late last night that a group of three militants and a local guide were found to be hiding in Maloora village. Troops of Rashtriya Rifles 02 Bn and men from SOG Srinagar maintained a tight cordon but avoided house-to-house searches until Bandipore Police today identified the hideout.

SOG and troops zeroed in on the particular house and engaged the holed up militants in a fierce gunbattle. Some of the officials insisted that all three of the holed up militants got killed and their Bandipore-based guide was arrested. However, some others said that one of the three holed up militants was believed to have escaped from the cordoned area this afternoon. SSP Srinagar, Syed Ashiq Hussain Bukhari, confirmed the arrest of the Bandipore guide, Gulzar Ahmed, and added that the target was destroyed in the operation. He said that the search would resume for the third possible dead body in the morning on Friday.

Two helicopters, which landed close to the site of the encounter, ferried senior Army officials and remained ready to carry the injured, if any, to a base hospital. However, DGP and other officials claimed that there was no collateral damage. GOC of Kilo Force, SSP Srinagar, Ashiq Bukhari and SP City (West) Amit Kumar personally supervised the operation.

Today’s gunbattle in Srinagar outskirts happened over 10 months after some militants had clashed with Police and CRPF in fidayeen style at the business hub of Lalchowk on January 6^th this year. Valley witnessed months of continued turbulence after a teenaged student Tufail Matoo died allegedly in teargas shelling on a stone pelting crowd of civilians in downtown Srinagar on June 11^th. Over a hundred civilian demonstrators, including some arsonists, died subsequently in violent clashes with Police and paramilitary forces. Turmoil has receded to a large extent as no fatal casualty has taken place after 18 civilians and a Police constable died in fierce clashes on September 13^th.

As many as 40 militants have died in different gunbattles with Police and security forces in Kashmir valley in the last two months. However, not a single encounter has happened in Srinagar and its outskirts since January 6^th.

END