Trio were travelling in truck driven by Lethpora suicide bomber’s cousin, group had infiltrated from IB in Jammu in last 48 hrs, huge cache of arms, ammunition recovered: top police official, Driver, conductor, civilian arrested
Nasir Azam
Jammu : Three militants were killed and a policeman sustained injures after a group of 3-4 militants travelling in a truck opened fire at a police team at Bann toll plaza on Jammu-Srinagar national highway early Friday morning. The militants were travelling in truck, the drover of which was identified as the cousin brother of suicide attacker of Lethpora, Pulwama attack of February 14, 2019 Adil Dar.
The driver was identified as Sameer Ahmed Dar, a resident of Pulwama district of South Kashmir. Sameer has done Masters in Geology from University of Kashmir. The truck conductor and a civilian were also arrested with Dar, who are also residents of Pulwama district. A top police officer told wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) that Sameer was driving the truck in which three foreign militants were travelling.
“The militants had sneaked from International Border in Jammu,” said the officer. A civilian arrested along with driver and conductor, seems to be an Over Ground Worker (OGW), the officer said.
The driver Sameer, according to the officer, was arrested along with a conductor and is being interrogated. He said while as one militant was gunned down immediately, others managed to flee to the adjacent forest area.
Soon after the attack, two explosions were heard near the toll plaza where the encounter between militants and security forces took place. “The group of three militants were on their way to Srinagar when they were intercepted by the police team at the toll plaza,” the police officer told KNO. He said that they were a newly infiltrated group and were on their way to Srinagar. “The group had infiltrated into this side in the last 48 hours,” the official said.
He said that all the three Jaish men were sent by their masters across the LoC to take the reigns of JeM. On January 25, GoC of Srinagar based army’s 15 Corps, Lt General KJS Dhillon had stated that with the killing of Qari Yasir, JeM’s chief commander in Kashmir along with two aides, the outfit stand wiped out from the Valley.
The firing took place around 5 am when the police team stopped a Srinagar-bound truck for checking near the toll plaza in the Ban area of Nagrota. “In the ensuing gunfight, three unidentified militants were killed. It seems they were all from Pakistan,” he said. A large quantity of arms and ammunition including wireless sets were recovered from the possession of slain militants. (KNO)
