Eight security men killed as fidayeen attack police complex in Kashmir

Eleven persons, including eight security personnel and three fidayeen (suicide) militants, were killed on Saturday in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir in recent months.

In a pre-dawn attack, at least three heavily-armed fidayeen, believed to be foreign mercenaries, stormed district police lines (DPL) in southern Pulwama district at around 4:15 am, where hundreds of Police personnel and their families reside.

After forcing their way into the DPL premises, the militants resorted to indiscriminate firing and threw grenades in which two policemen and a CRPF trooper were killed and several others were injured, police said. Security forces had to evacuate nearly 50 families of policemen from the residential quarters inside the complex which delayed the operation.

The presence of families of policemen in DPL quarters hampered the operation and police first launched evacuation operation and shifted their families to safer places, sources said and added after evacuating nearly 150 persons belonging to over 40 police families, the security forces engaged the militants, who were hiding in huge concrete buildings.

"Two SPOs (special police officers) who were inside the buildings were also killed by the militants. Two CRPF personnel were killed when they were defusing one of the improvised explosive devices planted by the militants," they



said.

Security forces suffered one more causality as one of the militants came out of a building and fired indiscriminately during the encounter, sources said and added two militants were neutralised by the forces while one or two still believed to be hiding inside the complex. "After the two militants were killed, firing inside the complex stopped," police said.

State Police chief Shesh Pal Vaid said that bodies of two militants have been recovered from the encounter site and body of one more militant is expected to be under the debris. He refuted the possibility of a security lapse that could be responsible for the attack, explaining that "You can't prevent (an attack) if somebody is ready to die."

Officials said the camp was targeted to inflict high casualties on policemen and their families. The complex, that has been attacked, is situated in a high-security area and close to Deputy Commissioner and SSP office on Shopian-Pulwama highway.

Pakistan based Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) terror outfit owned responsibility for the deadly attack. Authorities sealed off Pulwama and snapped mobile Internet services across the district as a 'precautionary measure.'

Meanwhile, Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti strongly condemned the killing of security personnel saying violence of last three decades or more has taken a heavy toll on the people of the State in terms of death and destruction.