CRPF men shifted to other buses after two of them developed snags

SRINAGAR: A defect in two vehicles of the CRPF led to accommodating their passengers in other buses which were part of the entourage hit by the suicide bomber in Pulwama on Thursday.

A brief note prepared by the CRPF after the terror attack revealed that in the 78-vehicle convoy, 14 had stopped at the transit camp in Qazigund and another two developed defects at the same place, 25 km from Pulwama. That forced many transient CRPF jawans to be accommodated in other vehicles.

The official note which mentions the sequence of events of the attack says that the convoy comprising 78 vehicles with 2,547 transients, including drivers and escorts under Assistant Commandant of 180 Battalion Manoj Kumar, moved from transit camp Jammu to Srinagar at about 3.30 am. There were 309 escorts and 2,159 transient soldiers in the convoy. The convoy reached Qazigund at about 2.15 pm. But 14 vehicles stopped at Qazigund and another two developed snags. However, the note does not explain why 14 vehicles halted at the transit camp along with the two defective vehicles.

At this point, another 16 bullet-proof vehicles had joined the convoy. However, intelligence sleuths believe that the bomber identified the bus which was the fifth in the sequence with at least four vehicles carrying senior officials ahead of it.