Hostage mystery — Missing militant didn’t exist’

NEW DELHI, JULY 16: When Black Cats were on their way to Bandipore to rescue the 12 captives in the BSF residential campus, apparently th...

NEW DELHI, JULY 16: When Black Cats were on their way to Bandipore to rescue the 12 captives in the BSF residential campus, apparently there was no one holding them hostage. Because their lone militant captor already lay dead after he had killed four persons, including three officers and the wife of a constable.

body:But so terrified were the hostages that they were unaware of this and remained in the room in which they had been holed up. Moreover, BSF troops mistakenly presumed that after the violent shoot-out on Tuesday morning, there were more militants waiting in the building, authoritative BSF sources said today.

That’s why even after NSG commandos fired rockets at the building, they couldn’t find the body in the debris. A spokesman claimed yesterday that it had been blown to “smithereens.”

Sources say that the militant’s presence was first detected by Bharati, wife of constable M Muneerajappa, at about 2.30 am. She raised an alarm and was killed by the armed intruder. Her husband and son were injured in the shooting.

Hearing the commotion, Sub-Inspector K Bhaskaran reportedly rushed from his first-floor quarters and was also killed by the militant. By then, the entire campus was on alert and DIG S K Chakravorty, accompanied by intelligence branch official Mohan Raj and his guards, began moving towards the building where the militant had by then taken 12 people hostage.

Amid heavy exchange of fire, Mohan Raj volunteered to enter the building, sources said. Nobody knew what happened to him and finally Chakravorty was killed as well when he tried to enter the building. The exchange of fire continued and later four constables were injured, one of them seriously.

As BSF personnel were busy evacuating the injured to the hospital, the intruder tried to escape but was shot. It was nearly mid-day Tuesday.

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Sources said although there was no firing from the building after that, nobody could infer that there were no more intruders left inside.

So the 12 frightened hostages remained holed up inside until the next morning. “When they got the courage to come out, they still believed they would encounter the armed militants on the first floor,” sources said.

Even after the hostages had come out safely, NSG guards blew up the top of the building thinking that there were other militants inside. But later the only body was recovered from the campus was that of the militant killed the previous day. He was carrying a Kalashnikov, sources said.