The Army on Saturday used heavy weaponry in its attempt to flush out militants holed up in a hotel at the centre of the town here, killing one militant. As the encounter entered its third day, the Army fired dozens of heavy mortar shells and rockets at Hotel New Light, where two Lashkar militants were holed up since Thursday afternoon. The fierce gunbattle continued as a contingent of the J-K Police encircled the hotel and made attempts to enter it. A CRPF jawan has been killed and few security personnel have received injuries in the encounter.When a contingent of the police and Army tried to close in and storm the hotel on Saturday morning, after an intermittent firing and sporadic blasts throughout the night on Friday, they met with a stiff resistance from the militants inside. The security forces initially retreated, but returned with heavy weaponry to target the hotel.“We used rockets,” IGP, Kashmir Range, S M Sahai told reporters. Sahai, together with Central Reserve Police Force IG S K Singh have been camping at the encounter site. “We used heavy weaponry because the hotel building is made of concrete.”By evening, the forces managed to enter the hotel and killed one militant. “We have occupied three floors of the hotel,” Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP), Sopore, Mir Imtiyaz told The Sunday Express. “We have killed one militant while the other is still holed up.” The security forces fired rockets at the roof of the hotel in the morning creating a hole. A special joint team then entered the building through it,” said Imtiyaz. In fact, on Friday, when the police tried to enter the building from the third floor, the militants opened indiscriminate firing killing a CRPF constable and injuring some personnel and forcing them to abandon the plan. A special commando team was then called to storm the building.The encounter began on Thursday when CRPF repulsed a fidayeen attack on its camp. As the militants failed in their attempt, they rushed towards the nearby hotel. The building was soon cordoned off and the police evacuated more than 100 people from the hotel and its adjacent buildings before launching an offensive to flush out the militants.
