Pulwama. In a pre-dawn attack three militants of Jaish e Mohammad militant outfit stormed into district police lines Pulwama triggering a fierce day long gun fight killing eight government forces including four policemen and four CRPF para-military soldiers. two terrorist were also killed in a fire exchange that lasted for about 18 hours.
At around 3:45 am militants stormed their entry into District police lines (DPL) Pulwama and attacked the SOG, CRPF barracks by lobbing grenades and firing from automatic weapons thus killing one SOG personnel and injuring six others including five CRPF men and one policeman in the initial assault said a police official.
The injured were immediately evacuated to army hospital where two CRPF men succumbed to injuries.
About one kilometer area of the police lines was sealed by government forces and Internet was snapped in the entire district.
As the encounter was on, youth took to streets in main town and clashed with forces. They pelted stones on government forces who lobbed shells on youth and fired bullets in air. Complete shutdown was observed in most parts of the district.
J&K Police chief S P Vaid said there was “no security lapse” in the ‘fidayeen’ (suicide) attack on a district police complex in south Kashmir’s Pulwama today, in which eight security personnel were killed. “You cannot prevent (an attack) if somebody is ready to die,” he told PTI. Vaid further added that the militants had taken shelter in the family quarters of the complex. “The security forces together evacuated everybody from those blocks and in the process, we have suffered some casualties, but the terrorists have been eliminated,” he added.
During the day, a meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by NSA Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and others reviewed the encounter.
Inspector general of police, Kashmir Range, Munir Khan said two bodies of militants have been retrieved which are burnt. “Searches are going on as we doubt that bodies of some more militants might be lying in there,” he said.
