22-hour stand-off ends at dawn,two militants killed

When the Jammu and Kashmir police finally pulled out the bodies of the two slain fidayeen militants after a 22-hour siege,they were in for a shock.

When the Jammu and Kashmir police finally pulled out the bodies of the two slain fidayeen militants after a 22-hour siege,they were in for a shock. One of the militants was Manzoor Ahmad Bhat,a 24-year-old carpenter from a village near Sopore who had fled his home and joined the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen HuM a year and a half ago.

Bhat had never crossed the Line of Control for arms training. Bhat was the second militant to be killed in the five-hour assault this morning after the security forces evacuated civilians trapped in the hotel in which the fidayeens were holed up,and adjacent buildings.

Four assault teams of the J-K Police and Central Reserve Police Force CRPF barged into the hotel,The Punjab,from the rooftop early Thursday morning. The militants,staying put on the second floor of the four-storey building,fired intermittently and lobbed grenades. The police first traced and killed the Pakistani militant,Abu Qari. It took them another half an hour to kill the second fidayeen,who turned out to be Bhat,the carpenter from Sopore.

Sources in the polices counter-insurgency unit suggest that Bhat was on their radar and used to operate with Usman as his code name. Qari,a known Harkat-ul-Mujahideen militant operating in north Kashmir,was a resident of Baluchistan who had sneaked into the Valley two years ago.

Sources say that Nouman,the HuMs Srinagar commander,was in touch with the two fidayeens through the night. Though both the militants belonged to HuM,police are ascertaining whether Lashkar had any role in the operation. Such fidayeen attacks are generally carried out by Lashkar and this is the first time when HuM has sent its cadre for a fidayeen attack. HuM has very little presence across Kashmir ever since its top commanders parted ways to form Jaish-e-Mohammad in April,2001.

While the assault teams of J-K Police and CRPF were fighting their way inside The Punjab,the electronic surveillance units of police and other agencies in Kashmir were keeping a close watch for clues. When HuM spokesman Hasan Askari called a television journalist to take responsibility for the attack,the police immediately zeroed in on his cell phone and later questioned him too.

As the encounter ended,the death toll had risen to four- two militants,a police personnel and a civilian. Ten persons,including three civilians,were also injured in the 22-hour gunfight,first major attack in Srinagar in the past three years.

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Though investigations suggest that the militants were members of the Harkat,Director General of Police,Kuldeep Khuda said that it was a Lashkar operation. The two fidayeen belonged to the Lashkar-e-Toiba, said DGP Khuda who,along with senior police and CRPF officers,arrived at the encounter site soon after the police ended the operation. We already had an input about a possible militant attack in Srinagar city. The two militants had some other target,but the policemen of Maisuma Police Stations on Wednesday afternoon intercepted them and they opened fire and later took refuge in the hotel.

On Wednesday,two militant groups,Jamiat-ul- Mujahideen and HuM,claimed the responsibility for the attack. The Inspector General of Police IGP,Kashmir,Farooq Ahmad,who oversaw the entire operation,said the assault was launched only after the civilians were evacuated. The IGP said the militants tried to set the hotel on fire. Qari was killed first by the assault team and the other militant tried to set the hotel on fire to divert the attention of the security forces, he said.

Ahmad said Bhat was killed when he tried to escape from the hotel. He said initial investigations revealed that the two militants had come from north Kashmirs Sopore,a stronghold of militants. Four CRPF men were killed in the town last week.