Pak terrorists return to J&K after hijack

JAMMU, JANUARY 5: Emboldened over the recent release of their three top leaders in exchange of the passengers of the hijacked Indian Airli...

JAMMU, JANUARY 5: Emboldened over the recent release of their three top leaders in exchange of the passengers of the hijacked Indian Airlines (IA) plane, a number of Pakistani terrorists — who had fled back to Pakistan in the wake of mounting security forces pressure have reportedly returned to the sensitive border state.

This has sounded alarm bells among the different security and police agencies engaged in counter insurgency operations in the state. While defence sources, admit that the equations in the ongoing proxy war have changed after the recent Army coup in Pakistan, senior police officials said that the situation has assumed dangerous proportions as the terrorists were trying to engineer violence in the otherwise peaceful winter capital city of Jammu.

Substantiating this, sources referred to the recovery of ten 107 mm Chinese made rockets from Nikki Tawi area during the last three days, saying that these solar-activated rockets were programmed for Republic Day. Some of them were planted in the direction of Maulana Azad Stadium — the venue of the Republic Day parade — and were programmed to strike at 9.30 am and 10 am. The others were targeted towards the airport and Army installations on the outskirts of the city.

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Significantly, these were brought by none else than Mohammad Irfan — a hardcore Pakistani terrorist — who, along with two others, had fled from the high security Kot Bhalwal prison last year. Irfan was responsible for making an unsuccessful attempt on the life of the then state governor K V Krishna Rao during the Republic Day parade at Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu in 1995. However, about a dozen people were killed and many others injured in the bomb explosion.

Though senior police officials were tight-lipped over the involvement of Irfan, sources said that they have circulated his photographs to all the police stations in Jammu district. Suspecting terrorists to have planted more rockets targeting various other important installations, red alert has been sounded and police parties were continuing searches at various places under the supervision of the Superintendent of Police (Border), sources said.

Pointing out that some suspected sympathisers of terrorists have been rounded up for questioning, sources said that this was the first ever attempt by terrorists to launch simultaneous attacks at various places on the Republic Day occasion. These rockets and the IED, if exploded, would have had a devastating effect, a senior police official said.

Apart from this, the police also recovered an IED containing two kgs of deadly RDX from under a 66 KV electricity transformer in R S Pura town.

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Some senior defence and police officials, however, said that terrorist activities had stepped up immediately after the Army coup in Pakistan. In this connection, they pointed out that the terrorists, who felt disillusioned after the withdrawal of Pakistani Army in Kargil, had become jubilant over the ouster of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Though violence had stepped up and terrorists started infiltrating into the state even from across the International Border (IB) for the last few months, attempts to engineer violence at such a large scale in Jammu city has come for the first time during the past decade. Substantiating it, sources referred to intelligence reports about the presence of a number of militants in Jammu city.

The defence officials also confirmed this, saying that the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was establishing its network of local sympathisers in the peaceful Jammu and Kathua districts. It has also established a number of camps across the IB, with terrorists in large numbers waiting for an opportunity to cross over to the state, they added.