BSF foils bid to storm camp next to a Dal Lake tourist hangout

Within 48 hours of the encounter that finally led to the killing of Jaish commander Gazi Baba, security agencies were back on their toes.The...

Within 48 hours of the encounter that finally led to the killing of Jaish commander Gazi Baba, security agencies were back on their toes.

The morning began with two suicide attackers trying to storm into a Border Security Force camp at Nishat right on the banks of the Dal lake. This was an area full of tourists, both domestic and foreign, until the lake and the boulevard skirting it was closed because of the Prime Minister’s high-profile visit last week.

The BSF managed to foil the attack and killed one of the attackers while the other escaped. ‘‘Two militants of the Jaish-e-Mohammad outfit dressed in Army fatigues attempted to sneak into the our 57 Battalion headquarters at around 3 am. A sentry noticed the militants when they were trying to cut the barbed wire. When challenged, they hurled grenades and opened heavy fire but they could not enter the campus,’’ a senior BSF officer said.

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One attacker was gunned down, the other slipped into the dark.

The slain militant was later identified as Irfan, a Jaish member from Bahawalpur in Pakistan. One AK rifle, eight magazines and three hand-grenades were recovered from him.

The BSF claims it had intercepted radio messages revealing Jaish plans to strike in a big way to avenge the killing of their commander Gazi Baba.

Jaish’s apparent call for ‘‘revenge’’ for Gazi Baba’s killing is being taken very seriously here: the J&K Police are reviewing security arrangements of all VIPs under their protection.

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Officers of the Special Security Group—a commando wing of the police that protects Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed—along with other police officers today surveyed the entire area around Mufti’s official residence at the Maulana Azad Road.

Personnel were posted on rooftops of almost every multi-storey building. Mufti, who decided to come and live inside the town rather than put up in the secluded Gupkar road, has in fact made the security establishment nervous as his residence is deemed to be a potential site for an attack.

Then the Srinagar-Jammu national highway—the only road linking Kashmir with the rest of the country—too was closed in the morning after an overnight IED (improvised explosive device) blew up beneath a culvert at Lawlordra-Qazigund, around 80 km from here.

The culvert was repaired and normal traffic resumed at around 9 am today. However, militants had already planted another powerful improvised explosive device at Chursoo (ahead of Awantipora) again on the National Highway.

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According to the police, the IED was hidden underneath the debris of illegal construction along the highway. ‘‘The militants triggered an explosion as soon an army convoy passed by,’’ a senior police officer said. ‘‘The army convoy had several private buses carrying the troops and a bus driver, Ranjit Singh was killed in the explosion and four Armymen were injured, some of them critically.’’

He said seven civilians were also injured who were either walking along the road at that time or were travelling in several private vehicles.