Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Oct, 12: The 56-hour long operation at EDI building in Pampore area in the outskirts of Srinagar ended here this evening with the killing of two Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants while a People’s Conference worker was shot dead by militants in North Kashmir tonight.
Militants tonight shot dead a Peoples Conference worker, Ghulam Nabi Khoja in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
Superintendent of Police Handwara, Ghulam Jeelani told Excelsior that at least two militants fired at Khoja outside his residence at Kralpora village in North Kashmir’s Handwara area. He said that the Khoja was removed to Baramulla district hospital where he succumbed.
Khoja was working in Education Department as Class IV employee and was worker of ruling Peoples Conference led by Cabinet Minister Sajjad Lone.
Police and Army immediately reached the spot and conducted searches against the militants responsible for the killing of Khoja.
Meanwhile, operation launched by police and Army against a group of LeT militants ended this evening with the killing of two militants started at EDI building at 6 a.m. on Monday.
The elite para-commondos of army entered the EDI building this morning after two militants were killed last evening. They recovered two dead bodies of militants in the morning, who were later identified as Abu Maaz and Abu Waleed.
After the recovery of two bodies, the Special Forces entered the ground floor of the building and searched it room by room. The Army, in the meantime, targeted the first floor of the building with rockets. They then went up floor by floor up to the attic but found no militants inside.
The searches were completed by 2:30 p.m. and security forces recovered two AK rifles, 9 magazines, two grenades and 300 rounds of ammunition. However, the operation was later called off at 5 p.m.
Massive explosions are still being heard at EDI building as lot of unexploded ammunition fired by security forces is exploding now.
A police spokesman said here that the encounter had started on 10th of October between the militants and security forces. “On the first day itself the militants were asked to surrender. Instead they fired upon police and security forces from the building. The militants also set some rooms of the building on fire. An Army jawan was injured in the encounter on the first day”, he said.
“The police and security forces kept continued cordon around the building and also started room intervention. During this encounter two militants were killed. The bodies of the militants have been recovered from the encounter site, today. The identity of the slain militants is being ascertained,” the spokesman said.
General Officer Commanding (GOC) Victor Force, Major General Ashok Narula while giving details about the operation told reporters that day before yesterday in the morning time, “we had some firing that was going on in JKEDI and that is the time when our ROP was on the road… they went all inside and saw there was a presence of terrorists over there. Once it was confirmed that there were terrorists inside, we cordoned off the area and started to brought in more forces and launched our operation.”
The GOC said that keeping in view the huge complex, the operation was tricky. “This operation was a very tricky operation because it is a very huge building and we didn’t want to do any collateral damage because there were chances of civilians being inside. All those people were taken out”, he said.
“This, as far as the JKEDI is concerned, is a centre of excellence in which lot of our young brethren get employment courtesy all this… I feel very sad that this is for the second time they have had come and encountered and occupied this building. Whereas this is pride in our Kashmir, both the time this has been targeted. We have taken our time, this is one building which has 60 rooms. It has got ground floor, six floors and there was once attic there”, he said.
Major General Narula said that security forces were not in hurry because they didn’t want collateral damage. “Sixty rooms had an equal numbers of bathrooms also and that’s the reason it takes time to clear each and every room because it takes time… the drill of every room is complete and we couldn’t hurry, because of the collateral damage and we don’t want unnecessary there should be a problem and that is the reason it takes time”, he said.
“Day before yesterday we started operation, yesterday we kept working on this and today morning we started the clearing of the whole operation. At this moment, as far as we know, there are two people who have been eliminated and the two weapons which have been recovered”, he said.
“No that (firing rockets) is a normal drill that we generally do before going into an operation and we do fire from outside so that we are able to care of it. There was a too much of glass, we had to do a bit of precaution affect also. With that precautions the glasses break and you are able to see through it and in many cases you have to keep firing because you have to initially first pin down those people down and thereafter do something”, he said.
“As far as these two people are concerned, we did have at times the information keeps coming that people may be there. There are number of people who were available there. They happen to be in the JKEDI and we conducted the operation. Most probably they belong to LeT”, he said.
Inspector General of Police Kashmir, SJM Gillani said that the militants were intending to inflict casualties on security forces who will come to conduct the operation and second was to spent time in the building so as to draw the attention.
Gillani said that after Baramulla attack security forces were alert in Srinagar. “See after the encounter that took place in Baramulla the attack that happened, we had the information that there might be people who would try to sneak into the city, carry out these types of attacks on the highway. So our people were alert and probably it is also because of the fact that people were alert on the highway they couldn’t cause any damage on the highway and they had to take shelter in the building”, he said.
The IGP said that security forces are prepared for any eventuality. “See we are prepared for any eventuality, so any deployment that has to be done in terms of defensive posturing that is being done. Also in terms of pro-active operations that would be done”, he said.
In the meantime, Army today foiled an infiltration bid in Tanghdar sector along the Line of Control in North Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
Sources said that 26 Rajput of Army deployed on the LoC noticed suspicious movement near the LoC and they opened fire and later a massive operation was launched in the area with the help of 4-Para commandos.
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