SRINAGAR: The Army foiled an infiltration attempt — the second from across the Line of Control (LoC) within a week —by killing three heavily armed terrorists at Hatmulla in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district on Thursday.
Troopers recovered a large cache of arms and ammunition including five AK rifles, eight pistols, two IEDs and 69 grenades with many of Chinese and Pakistani origin. Indian and Pakistani currency worth Rs 35,000 and Rs 3,300 were also found from the slain terrorists.
General Officer Commanding (GoC) of Srinagar-based Army’s 15 Corps Lt Gen D P Pandey told reporters that at around 6 am, jawans spotted three persons crossing over at Hatmulla area in Baramulla. “On being challenged, there was a gunfight and three terrorists were killed,” he said. “Documents recovered reveal that one of them is a Pakistani and identity of the two others is being ascertained. The group to which they belonged is also being ascertained.”
Blaming Pakistan for infiltration, the GoC said it is not possible that such activity can take place without connivance and support of local army commanders. “Either they have adopted the approach of ‘live and let live’ or differently... They are complicit in allowing such activities to enable infiltration of terror groups.”
Referring to the three-day army operation in Uri, Lt Gen Pandey said, “On September 18 night, an attempt was made to infiltrate. There were six terrorists and four of them were on the other side of LoC and two had been able to cross over the LoC fence. There was a brief exchange of fire.” “There was intense search for three days. The operation has ended. We have verified that there was no remnant of infiltration.” IG, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said as many as 97 pistols were seized so far from terrorists this year.