Six terror attacks in less than two years claimed 33 lives

Ravi Krishnan Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 30

Six major terror attacks orchestrated by Pakistan in less than two years since September 2013 have claimed 33 lives in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab. India has fenced over 650 km of the Indo-Pak border in the two states.

In the July 27 attack, the latest of the six, suspected Lashkar terrorists killed seven people. Five earlier attacks in Jammu and Kashmir had claimed 26 lives. Among the 33 killed in six attacks, two were officers, Lt Col Bikramjeet Singh of the 16 Cavalry Unit in Samba and SP (Detective) of Punjab Police Baljeet Singh. Others who fell to bullets of Pakistani terrorists were 17 Army, police and paramilitary personnel and 14 civilians.

“Over the years, India fenced more than 650 km of the international border with Pakistan in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, yet six major attacks exposed chinks in our security grid along the border,” said a senior police official.

An official report tabled by the Union Home Minister in Parliament today stated that preliminary analyses of GPS data found from slain militants from the site of encounter (Dinanagar) indicated that terrorists had infiltrated from Pakistan through the area near Tash in Gurdaspur district, where the Ravi entered Pakistan.

“The findings tabled in Parliament substantiated our claim that infiltration did not take place from Jammu’s border with Pakistan. We conducted a thorough check, but could not find any breach in the fence,” said a senior BSF officer of the Jammu Frontier.

The Jammu Frontier of the BSF has operational responsibility of the 198-km border from Kathua to Chicken Neck area of Akhnoor in Jammu district.

“In all six attacks, the terrorists were eliminated by security forces, but 33 Indians, including 14 civilians, lost their lives. How many attacks does India need to learn its lessons?” said Roop Lal of the border town of Arnia, who lost his relatives in one such attack in Kathar village near Arnia on November 27 last year.