SRINAGAR : The army today said that the Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) group which was behind the attacks on mobile towers in the Valley appears to be a “fringe” element, adding that such threats were investigated seriously.
“As far as LeI is concerned, by and large it appears to be a fringe group which is trying to create a sense of terror in the areas in which they are operating,” General Officer Commanding (GOC) of Chinar Corps in Srinagar, Lt Gen Subrata Saha said.
“There is another group Tehreek-e-Taliban, there are some posters that have come, that is still being investigated because any such indicator, it is my belief, must be taken seriously and investigated to its logical conclusion,” he said.
The army commander said the security agencies were keeping a watch on “terrorism from across the Line of Control (LoC)” and other outfits like Taliban and ISIS.
“As far as terrorism from across the Line of Control (LoC) is concerned, all these outfits are linked somewhere and there is cross-pollination between their cadres at some point as well. Their linkages and effect is meaningful to us.
“We think it is important to take all such inputs into our calculus when we carry out our dispositions, when we carry out our operations over here,” he said.
Pointing the spotting of ISIS flags in Srinagar last year, the General Commanding officer however said that there was no pattern of operation noticed and security forces were on alert to tackle any situation.
“As far as ISIS is concerned, last year there were five instances when we saw the flags on display at different places – on four occasions in Srinagar and on one occasion in Shopian. All agencies are keeping a watch for that but as to say that there is any trend or pattern, that did not emerge because they were all in 2014.
“It did not quite get linked to one another in that sense. But the larger answer to the question is that yes as security forces we have to be alert and alive to all such threats that may emerge,” Lt Gen Subrata Saha added.
There have been frequent infiltration attempts from
across the LoC and they were prepared to deal with them, Lt Gen Saha said, adding the army has foiled three infiltration attempts in the past fortnight killing eight terrorists.
“This year, we had a little late snowfall, so that is the reason probably you can see some kind of a desperation which is there. We saw the first attempt on May 25 and second attempt of May 30-31. Now, just two days back we had this next attempt. So far eight (infiltrators) have been eliminated while trying to infiltrate and we are prepared to take on any more attempts,” he said.
“Even on the night of Saturday-Sunday, there was an attempt that had taken place beyond Jumagund in Keran sector in Kupwara district. There was a contact (and) after that they left that place in a rush and what we recovered from there was a wire cutter and a walking stick,” he said.
The army commander briefed mediapersons on the sidelines of a function to felicitate students and teachers of Army Public School in Srinagar for outstanding performance in Class 12 examinations. The school stood first in the order of merit among all army public schools in the country.
The function was also attended by Jammu and Kashmir Governor N N Vohra. (AGENCIES)
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