Militants’ ambush zone: Highway 1A

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 26

A series of attacks that follow a repeating pattern — targeting of convoys of security agencies — has made the busy highway connecting the Valley with rest of the country a death trap for security personnel.

The attacks on the Highway 1A that moves through Kashmir valley have sent shock waves through the security apparatus as despite counter-measures and a rigid deployment to protect the highway, the militants have proven their ability to strike hard and at will.

In the latest attack along the highway, a two-member militant squad ambushed a convoy of the CRPF on Saturday and pinned at least one vehicle with heavy fire. Eight paramilitary personnel were killed in the ambush, 20 were injured, and the two militants were killed in a retaliatory fire.

The ambush, carried out near Pampore town outside Srinagar city, is the deadliest militant attack in recent years. The last time militants had managed to kill this many number of security personnel in a single strike was in June 2013 when an Army convoy was ambushed along the highway in the city here.

A police officer, who is part of the team probing the Pampore ambush, said the two militants are believed to be ‘fidayeen,’ a specialised unit of militants trained to carry out sophisticated and brazen attacks in which chances of survival are bleak.

The official said the attack had signature of Lashkar-e-Toiba. Abu Dujana, who replaced Abu Qasim as the militant outfit’s in charge in south Kashmir districts, is believed to have either masterminded or been part in the planning of the attack. 

The security agencies, the official said, had a prior intelligence about an attack coinciding with the counting of votes in Anantnag bypoll. “There was a general input about possible fidayeen attack coinciding with the outcome of election. It was specific to the extent that we were expecting an attack along the highway anywhere between Jawahar Tunnel and Srinagar bypass,” the officer said. 

The 100-km stretch of highway between Jawahar tunnel, on the most southern tip of the Kashmir valley, and Srinagar bypass, which criss-crosses through three volatile south Kashmir districts has become a haunt for militants to lay deadly ambushes in recent years.

“Getting onto and getting out of highway is very easy compared to other roads. And national highway is the primary line of communication in Kashmir, so at any given moment there is always some dignitary or some security forces vehicle on the move. That is why the highway,” said IG of CRPF Nalin Prabhat.