Initial Probe Reveals Lashkar Behind Attack on Army in Kashmir =>The attack on an Army convoy in which eight soldiers were killed on Monday on the city outskirts was the deadliest against security forces in the last five years. A dozen jawans of the Rashtriya Rifles were also wounded in the attack carried out by two militants riding a motorcycle. The last deadliest ambush was carried out by militants on July 2008 in which 10 soldiers were killed on the city outskirts at Narbal. While the Army has ordered a probe into the attack, the initial investigation has suggested the attackers were Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT) cadres. “The initial investigation has hinted that the attackers belonged to LeT, not Hizbul Mujahideen which owned the responsibility for the attack,” a police officer said. “Hizb had also owned the responsibility for the Bemina fidayeen attack in March, but it was the LeT which had carried out the attack,” he said. The police also recovered the motorbike which was used by the militants to carry out the attack. “Militants had taken the motorcycle from two students at Baghat locality and abandoned it in Barzulla. We suspect that one militant is a foreigner and another is from south Kashmir,” the police officer said. While the police is investigating and trying to trace the militant group which carried out the twin attacks in Srinagar, the Army, too, has ordered a probe. The probe would check whether the standard operating procedure (SOP) was followed by various security agencies during the movement of the Army convoy. “As per the SOP, the Srinagar bypass road is to be sanitised and secured by the CRPF for the movement of security vehicles. The road opening party of the CRPF was deployed on this stretch, but the militants still managed to carry out the strike,” said a senior Army officer. “The probe will try to ascertain whether the SOP was adhered to or not,” he said. The quick reaction teams of the Army also failed to reach to the encounter site immediately after the shootout. “There were two teams of the Army highway security patrol which were barely two km from the attack side. Both were caught in a traffic jam so they could not reach the encounter site immediately,” the Army officer said. Another Army officer said the Srinagar bypass road was turning out to be the most vulnerable area in Srinagar as three attacks had taken place on the stretch in the past four months and 14 security men had been killed and many injured. “Militants are choosing their targets meticulously in Srinagar. On one side, the Srinagar bypass stretch comes under the control of the Budgam police and on other, it comes under the Srinagar police and the paramilitary forces. So militants take advantage of this and carry out attacks and escape,” he said.(TNS)
Posted on: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 05:40:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015