Fidayeen strike on Sunjwan military station has set alarm bells ringing among the multi-agency centre (MAC) in Jammu & Kashmir. For a long time, the Centre has been issuing alerts and raising apprehensions about rampant encroachment of State/forest land in the close vicinity of Sunjwan military station by people from different parts of the State.

In the wake of Sunjwan attack, there are apprehensions that the terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad may have taken shelter in illegal colonies before launching the strike.

Majority of houses in the area belonged to people settled in Jammu from different parts of the State and top bureaucrats, senior politicians, and businessmen from the Kashmir Valley. During her day-long visit to Jammu even Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, “The demography of the Cantonment, which was attacked by the terrorists and adjoining area, indicated the possibility of local support to the terrorists.

“The Jaish-e-Mohammed module, which conducted the attack may have infiltrated sometime back and there is a possibility of them having enjoyed local support before the final operation,’’ Sitharaman said. In Jammu, the investigators are struggling to pick the threads to carry forward the investigations.

Another puzzle which is bothering the State police authorities is who actually provided arms and ammunition to terrorists in Jammu. Interestingly, the terrorists were not carrying any GPS device, a clear indication that they must have travelled with one of their guides and managed to give slip to security forces.

The National Investigation Agency is also going through the call details around the same period to pick any lead. The fact that these terrorists were able to reach Jammu from Kashmir Valley after breaching multi-layered security apparatus has baffled the top brass of the State police.

It is yet not clear whether these terrorists travelled along the 300-km long Jammu Srinagar National Highway or came via Mughal road.

It is also widely believed the terrorists were well-versed with the topography and managed to sneak inside the Army camp without coming on the radar of one dozen security pickets spread along the boundary wall of the Army camp.

Senior security officers say that it is possible the group of terrorists were already camping in the vicinity of the Army camp and had conducted recee of the area before storming the camp.

Till date fidayeens infiltrated from across the International border before storming the vital security installations dotted along the Jammu-Pathankot National Highway. It is after a long gap the terrorists took this route via Kashmir to reach Jammu and successfully executed the terror plot.

Due to heightened alert along the National Highway and movement of convoys of paramilitary and Army it is difficult to breach multi-layers of security but due to adverse weather conditions and thin traffic along the Mughal road it is easy to sneak in.

As reports suggested, these terrorists were active in areas of South Kashmir for past several months they must have preferred taking Mughal road via Shopian to reach Jammu via Rajouri-Poonch.

“Since it is difficult to travel along the highway without proper identity cards how could these terrorists managed to smuggle large cache of arms and ammunition,” a senior police officer said.