Their hunting skill helped track militants

Keeping trail of the militants by VDC through foot-marks helped Army kill a foreign mercenary identified as Abu Nomaan of fidayeen (suicide squad) of Lashkar-e-Toiba, here at Jhandi village on Sunday.

Like previous encounter in which four Pakistani militants were killed the success of this operation also goes to the Village Defence Committee members.

On April 27, one of the resident of Dharoga village while on his way to home during evening found seven foot-marks. Off which one had shoe mark and others were of naked feet. Because of his past experience in hunting, he easily could guess from the foot prints on sand that these were of some outsiders.

Suspecting, something foul he followed the foot prints and reached a spot near Uttraveni just adjacent to Devaki nullah where he found seeds of eaten mangoes and some cigarette butts. On seeing this he at once rushed to the Army headquarter and informed them about the presence of militants in the area.

Initially, the Army took it lightly, but on his repeated persuasion few of the men accompanied him to the spot. On examining the cigarette butts they found that it were of Pakistan make. Soon after this Army launched an operation in the area.

During cordon and search operation the Village Defence Committee (VDC) members carrying .303 rifles came under heavy fire of the sophisticated arms of the militants hiding in the ravines of the Jhandi village.

The VDCs resisted the fire for almost an hour and by that time reinforcement of 20 Raj Rifles reached the spot and challenged the militants.

The interception of a militant’s message, which was in Pushtoo, by Naib Subedar Bhupinder Singh of Raj Rifles helped in locating the militants position. "Their men had gone to get food for them from the nearby village," informed Singh.

He said the interception of message helped them identify the position from where the militant fire was coming. "Otherwise we would never have an inkling about their presence inside one of the caves formed due the movement of rain water in the area," Singh said.

Soon after the militant’s position was identified, the Army troops launched a three pronged attack. One of the jawan crawled to reach near the mouth of cave and hurled a grenade inside it.

This led to the killing of one of the militant. "Hearing the screams of the militant, our Havaldar tried to peep into the cave. As he was looking inside, the militant opened burst of fire killing him on spot," recalled another jawan, who was there on spot.

Deputy General Officer In Commanding A B C Kundra had all praise for the VDC men. He said: "They are the strong force of deterrence in the area. The inputs given by these people help Army in conducting successful and clean operation." He informed that earlier also their information based on foot marks had helped Army in killing Pakistani militants in same area.

But these words of General hardly impressed the sweating VDC men, who had just returned from the ravines with the body of the militant. Neither empty stomach nor the thirst following their engagement in two-days long operation was bothering them. What irked them more was the escaping of other militants from the cordon.

"The operation would have been successful only if we would have killed all the seven militants. But unfortunately the others have managed to escape," rued 50-years-old Gian Chand a VDC member from village Khiani.

Col K S Chowdhary, Commandant of 20 Raj Rif patted them on their back and asked them not to worry. He told them it is this will and determination of theirs that will very soon help them in eradicating militancy from the area.