Two days after the major terror strike in four towns of Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant General Subrata Saha said that the terrorists belonged to Lashkar-e-Toiba group and were highly trained to carry special operations. Kashmir Valley was rocked by four attacks by terrorists from across the border who stormed an Army camp in Uri leaving 11 security personnel including a Lt Colonel dead and killed two civilians in Tral.
The attacks and gun battles with security forces which in all left 21 people dead also included a top commander of Pakistan-based terror outfit LeT and seven terrorists. Srinagar and Shopian were the other two places where the terrorists struck.
“The attacks were well co-ordinated and synchronized. Items and ammunition recovered from the terrorists were from Pakistan branding,” said Saha.
“The sequence in which events have happened shows that it was not a routine infiltration,” Saha added.
High security is in place in Srinagar as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a rally on Monday. Uri, Srinagar, Tral and Shopian goes to polls in the third and fourth phase over the next 10 days.
Uri town in North Kashmir woke up to a raging gun fight between terrorists and Army personnel on Friday morning as a group of six terrorists had targeted an artillery camp, located 20 km from the Line of Control (LoC) in a pre-dawn strike, official sources said.
The terrorists entered into the first barrack of the high-security artillery unit at 3:10 AM and fired several rounds which set off a fire. Four army personnel, who were injured in the gun fight, could not come out of the barrack and were charred to death, the sources said.
“(Either side of) the road between Baramulla and Uri is densely populated now. The aim must have been to come and strike at civilian targets to cause fear and disrupt the peaceful conditions ahead of the polls,” General Officer Commanding of Army’s 15 Corps Lt General Subrata Saha told reporters here.
Lt General Saha, however, dismissed assertions that the attacks were due to failure of the counter-infiltration grid along the Line of Control (LoC). “Had that been the case they could have attacked the civilian targets that they were looking for,” he added.
Eleven security personnel including eight soldiers were killed in the pre-dawn attack on the Army camp by militants, who had infiltrated from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, before all the six assailants were shot dead.
