By Yusuf Jameel and Shuchismita
with agency inputs
Srinagar/Jammu, Aug. 27: Three militants holed up inside a house at Manhas Mohalla in Chinore, 20 km from Jammu, were killed in a daylong fierce gunbattle with security forces on Wednesday but the fate of the seven people they had taken hostage was not immediately known, officials said. Four civilians and an Army officer were killed in the operation.
"The operation in Chinore is over as the third militant has been killed around 11.30 pm," Jammu SSP Manohar Singh told IANS. "However, the fate of the hostages is not known."
The militants had gone on a shooting spree, killing five people, including an Army officer, before the standoff between them and troops began at Bantalab, 20 km south of Jammu.
During the indiscriminate firing by terrorists at Mishriwala and the encounter at Chinore, three Army personnel and two labourers were injured.
The terrorists had subsequently taken seven members of a family — three women and four children — hostage.
One of the militants holed up in the house told two reporters over mobile phones they were "highly upset" over the "economic blockade" of the Valley by right-wing Hindu activists and their "targeting" of Jammu’s Muslims. Officials said how the terrorists got the reporters’ phone numbers just a day after sneaking across from Pakistan was a mystery. The Army and security agencies are investigating.
But was the purpose of the latest infiltration: simply vengeance, or was there more? A senior government official in Srinagar said the militants wanted to sabotage the talks now underway with Jammu’s Amarnath Sangharsh Samiti, which, he claimed, was nearing a solution. The reported infiltration and subsequent bloody acts by militants came at a stage when the samiti and the four-member committee set up by governor N.N. Vohra are preparing to hold the fourth round of talks, expected to be the decisive one.
The samiti had planned a rally in support of its demand at Jammu’s Parade Ground on Wednesday, which it swiftly postponed "in the national interest".
Police and Army authorities in Jammu said the three terrorists, donning police uniforms and carrying AK-47s, reached Mishriwala, 25 km from Jammu, hired an auto and started firing. Those who fell victim were Nasib Singh, an ex-serviceman, Sadiq Hussain, a milkman, and Jagdish Kumar, an ex-serviceman. They also killed a junior commissioned officer, V.K. Prakashan of 9 Madras, at Bantalab, where they were stopped by the officer and were asked to prove their identities.
After reaching Chinore, they killed the autorickshaw driver, identified as Vijay Kumar. The ultras barged into the house of one Billu Ram at 5.50 am.
