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Journalism of Courage
The encounter with Lashkar militants that killed Lt Colonel M S Kadam in the Valley on March 16 was part of an operation to thwart an attempt to assassinate J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad during a public function three days later.
That function, the inauguration of a 200-bed hospital in Sopore — a traditional militant stronghold — went off peacefully yesterday but the police were on tenterhooks for an entire week. For, over the last three years, this was the 27th attempt on the life of the Chief Minister who is now “most wanted” on the militant hitlist in the Valley.
Sources said police received inputs that Lashkar’s operational chief Hafiz Nisar had planted a mole in the state Health Department whose job was to get two fidayeens to sneak into the venue of the inauguration.
Nisar and the mole were closely tracked and Nisar was traced to a house in Chatloora village in the outskirts of Sopore. Acting on these inputs, the police, along with Rashtriya Rifles, launched an offensive on March 16. In the encounter, Nisar was killed while the militants killed Kadam, officiating commanding officer of 22 RR, an Armyman and a police constable besides injuring two more soldiers.
The police say the “mole” in the Health Department, Sheikh Abdul Rehman, has been arrested.
He is originally from Kupwara but is now settled in Sopore. Police say Rehman had also been involved in financial transactions, transportation and other logistics for the militants. Rehman’s cousin Irshad has been picked up as well.
Sources say their information points to the involvement of two militant outfits Lashkar and Jaish in the planning of this latest bid on Azad’s life. “Lashkar commander Nisar was going to provide two fidayeens who would have been helped by Jaish to reach Sopore from where Rehman would have got them to sneak into the venue of the inauguration,” a senior officer told The Indian Express.
In fact, another group of Lashkar militants had been expecting Azad to visit his ancestral home in Doda, too. And the police intercepted a group of militants very close to Azad’s village yesterday — four of them, including two Pak nationals, were killed in an encounter.
The entire security establishment in J-K is now on high alert. Sources said the police had arrested a BSF man deployed in a bunker situated at a vantage point overlooking the lawns of the Chief Minister’s official residence in
Srinagar last year. The BSF man, sources say, had been a militant mole, tasked to assassinate Azad.
This happened while the government was reviewing Azad’s entire security after Intelligence found a mole inside his security net. In fact, the J-K Government’s Home department issued a circular making it mandatory to scan the luggage of even Azad’s Cabinet colleagues when they travel with the Chief Minister.
The police and security force top brass, however, is maintaining a silence on the issue. Sources said the Jaish is trying to regroup in Sopore, Bandipore, Pulwama and Shopian. Meanwhile, the police have traced the IED attack in Srinagar yesterday which broke the calm in the city after six months to a Hizbul Mujahideen module operating in Baramula and Pulwama. Sources said the police are on the lookout for Tanvir Zargar, a militant commander from
Baramula, and Musharraf from Pulwama who were allegedly trying to sneak into Srinagar city to conduct their operations.
