Three militants of the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) and an Assistant Sub-Inspector of the Border Security Force (BSF) were killed in a nine-hour gunfight in a heavily fortified BSF camp near the airport here on Tuesday.
The “heavily armed” and “highly trained” militants of the JeM suicide squad, named after Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru, stormed the camp at Humhama at 4.15 a.m. “The fidayeen [suicide] attack was repulsed. All three militants were killed,” said Muneer Khan, Inspector-General of Police, Kashmir.
The ASI killed was Braj Kishore Yadav, 50.
Airport not a target
Mr. Khan said the Srinagar airport was not the main target of militants. The gates of the airport, which has four-tier security in place, are just metres away from the BSF camp. “Only one flight was delayed or cancelled, and the rest operated normally,” Mr. Khan said. However, no flight was allowed to land in Srinagar during the first six hours of the gunfight.
There are four layers of security in the area as it has BSF and CRPF training camps and the complexes of the J&K Light Infantry and the IAF. Mr. Khan said such attacks would continue “as long as Pakistan is our neighbour.”
“The JeM believes in fidayeen attacks. We will have to deal with them separately.” One worker who helped the militants reach the camp was identified, the police said.
Sources in the counter-insurgency cell said the militants spread out as they mounted the attack.
“One tried to enter the camp through the main entrance, lobbing grenades, while two others cut the barbed wires to reach the premises and stormed a concrete block,” a police officer said.
The body of Braj Kishore Yadav, assistant sub-inspector of the BSF, was found in the complex occupied by two militants. “Four BSF jawans were also injured,” Mr. Khan said.
Security forces used high-calibre shelling to flush out the militants. The third militant was smoked out and “jumped from the complex around 2 p.m.”
Sources said the JeM wanted the attack to be staged on the first anniversary of the surgical strikes carried out by India in the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on September 29 last year. Two groups of militants were sent for the attack — one through the Poonch route in Jammu and the other through the Uri route in Kashmir, they said.