Jammu: Director General of J&K Police Dilbag Singh on Friday said that security forces killed two “heavily armed Pakistani terrorists who were part of Jaish suicide squad” in Sunjwan encounter.
He stated that they were tasked to sabotage the scheduled visit of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi by carrying out an attack on a camp of security forces or deployment.
“In this encounter, a CISF ASI was martyred, 2 JKP personnel and 3 CISF personnel suffered injuries. The attack was aimed at sabotaging the scheduled visit of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Samba on April 24,” DGP said.
He was interacting with the journalists after reviewing the situation, following the elimination of both Jaish-e-Mohammed militants and recovery of arms and ammunition, food items and medicines.
The DGP along with ADGP Jammu zone Mukesh Singh, DIG Jammu zone, SSP Jammu, officials of the other security agencies reached the encounter site after the search operation concluded following an over 5-hour long encounter.
The DGP J&K Police, while speaking to the journalists on the encounter site, said, “Since last night, J&K Police and other security forces had been engaged in the operation which just concluded.”
“Two terrorists – part of a suicide squad of Jaish-e-Muhammad had infiltrated freshly from Pakistan and they were given a task to target a security force camp or heavy deployment of security force with a motive to cause heavy casualties,” he said.
He said, “The information about their presence was received last night by the J&K Police and other agencies. On the basis of which, a joint operation was launched by the J&K Police, CRPF, CISF and Indian Army’s teams (in Sunjwan and its adjoining areas).”
The J&K Police chief said that the search operation continued throughout the night. “However, these foreign terrorists attempted to break the cordon during night when they opened indiscriminate fire on the CISF and police personnel. These personnel were manning the outer circle of the cordon and thus they sustained injuries,” he said.
Out of these injured security personnel, he said, “ASI of CISF namely S P Patel was martyred. Immediately the cordon was tightened in the area. During early morning searches, the gun battle between the security forces and terrorists continued for few hours.”
“Both the terrorists affiliated to Jaish-e-Muhammad outfit were wearing suicide-vests with an intention to cause damage to the security forces after using all their ammunition,” DGP said.
“Unfortunately, they were launched by Pakistan two days before the PM’s visit. This was an attempt to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in Jammu. It could be a bigger conspiracy to sabotage the PM’s visit. However, a successful operation was conducted by the security forces following timely inputs,” Singh said, while ruling out any inputs whether slain militants wanted to target the PM’s rally in Samba.
Quoting initial reports, in response to a question, he said, “Both the slain terrorists were Pakistani. Further verification in the matter is in progress.”
He said, “It seems to be a fresh infiltration. Definitely, it was an attempt to sabotage the PM’s visit as we all were preparing for it.”
DGP said that the security forces recovered a large number of arms and ammunition.
“Though they were two terrorists yet we found three weapons from them, many grenades, eatables, energy drinks and medicines which indicated they were on a fidayeen mission,” he responded to a question, while explaining that they had used rifle grenade to break the cordon which caused injuries to the security personnel.
He further added, “As per the movement on the other side (Pakistan), it seems that they are attempting to facilitate infiltration of terrorists into this side. Thus there is a possibility of an increase in the infiltration bids on IB and LoC.”
According to the ADGP Jammu zone, Mukesh Singh, the security forces recovered 2 AK rifles, its 10 magazines, 2 bags, 1 T-shirt, 1 pistol, 1 live hand-grenade, 1 live UBGL grenade, medicines, energy drink, 4 cells, suicide vests, one pistol magazine, elbow guard and knee guard, headphone, food items (khajoor, chocolates etc) from the encounter site.
Meanwhile, DIG, CISF, SK Sinha told media persons, “Our bus was attacked when it came to take back the paramilitary personnel whose duty was over. However, our boys fought bravely and retalated to the terrorist attack and hence, foiled their attempt.”
In this attack, he said, ASI SP Patel was martyred and one constable was seriously injured.
Meanwhile, Director, School Education Jammu, Dr Ravi Shanker Sharma told Greater Kashmir that they ordered the closure of all the schools falling in Sunjwan and its adjoining areas for the day to avoid inconvenience to the students. “More than 10 schools have been closed,” he informed.
The mobile internet service, which was snapped during early morning hours, was restored after the encounter followed by search operation was over in Sunjwan.
Although the encounter ended, the security forces were on high alert in Jammu, Samba and Kathua district, all along the International Border and also Srinagar-Jammu and Jammu-Pathankot highways in view of the scheduled visit of the Prime Minister on April 24 in Palli Panchayat of Samba district.
NIA team also visited the encounter site at Sunjwan and inspected the area.