Gurdaspur terrorists sneaked in from Pakistan to launch attack
PTI | Jul 27, 2015, 06.01 PM IST
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Terrorist Attack In Punjab|
Lashkar-E-Taiba|
Gurdaspur Terrorist Attack|
Gurdaspur Terror Strike|
Anti-Terror Operation In Punjab
Army jawans take position during an encounter with terrorists at the police station in Dinanagar town, in Gurdaspur district of Punjab on Monday. (PTI photo)
NEW DELHI: The perpetrators of Monday's terror strike in Punjab
are suspected to have sneaked into India from Pakistan through the unfenced border between Jammu and Pathankot or Chak Hira in Jammu district to launch the brazen assault about which central agencies had intelligence inputs.
Union home ministry sources said the terrorists, the name of whose outfit was still unclear, may have entered the Indian territory around last midnight and hit the highway using Paharpur road, nearly 15km from the international border, to unleash mayhem that left at least six dead, including an SP rank officer of Punjab police.
The last attack in Jammu was carried out by terrorists belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed whose fidayeen combatants, clad in Army fatigues, stormed a police station in Jammu & Kashmir's Kathua district on March 20 this year, killing at least six people, including three security force personnel. Both the militants had been killed in retaliatory action.
The terrorists involved in Monday's attacks, also wearing Army uniforms, reached Parmanand village on Jammu & Kashmir's border with Punjab where they attempted to hijack a tempo at 5.30am. The tempo driver, however, managed to flee.
Later they hijacked a Maruti 800 car after injuring its driver who is hospitalized, before killing a roadside vendor near Dinanagar bypass and spraying a Punjab roadways bus with bullets.
They then storm Dinanagar police station and shot dead a sentry. Showing guts, an alert head constable picked up the rifle of the deceased sentry and fired at the terrorists, numbering three to four.
The militants have since then holed up in vacant flats in the area and are engaged in intermittent exchange of fire with Punjab police personnel, who have cordoned off the area with the help of paramilitary forces.
The heavily-armed terrorists have also Gurudaspur SP (detective) Baljeet Singh, a Punjab provincial police service officer. Several civilians have been injured. One militant was killed and another seriously wounded in the gunbattle.
Sources said militants,
who could be from Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit,
may have entered Punjab because of heightened security on the Jammu side for the ongoing Amarnath Yatra.
Home minister Rajnath Singh, who is away in Madhya Pradesh for CRPF's raising day function, has spoken to BSF chief DK Pathak and directed him to enhance security along the international border.
Punjab and neighbouring Himachal Pradesh had been warned of a possible terror strike following intelligence inputs generated by central agencies and the matter had come up during Union home secretary LC Goyal's visit to Jammu & Kashmir in the last week of June.
The intelligence inputs spoke about the
possibility of Pakistan-based militants targeting locations in the two states due to enhanced security in the Jammu region.