Gurdaspur attackers fell to 3 bullets? Docs not sure

Ravi Dhaliwal & GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, August 1

Wider investigations are on to unravel the plot in the run-up to as well as post terror attack on Dinanagar police station on July 27. Though civil hospital doctors who conducted the post-mortem on the three slain terrorists are tightlipped about the number of bullets recovered from the bodies, a senior doctor has said "at least three bullets" have been found. The recovery of bullets can substantially reveal if the terrorists had killed each other or they committed suicide or whether they were killed by security forces.

Sources said a Pathankot police team looking for leads into whether the terrorists were sheltered before launching the attack "detained" a nomadic tribesman (Gujjar) from an undisclosed place. The detained person is suspected to have helped the terrorists in placing the bombs on the Dinanagar-Pathankot railway track. 

SSP Rakesh Kaushal, however, said the police had only questioned some Gujjars in a search operation in the Sujanpur, Bamial and Dhar blocks.

Senior Medical Officer Dr Sudhir Kumar, under whose directions the post mortems were conducted by three teams of doctors, first said that a total of only three bullets were found from the three bodies. He later said another bullet was found from the body of the yet-to-be-identified militant. His silence over the number of bullets recovered was intriguing, said a senior doctor.

The autopsies went well past midnight with the Deputy Commissioner Dr Abhinav Trikha, SSP Gurpreet Singh Toor and officials of state and central intelligence agencies staying back in the civil hospital complex till the formalities were over.

Officials are unwilling to go on record on the contents of the post-mortems. A doctor said hospital authorities had handed over the reports along with other belongings of the militants to the police. About the place where the militants will be buried, the SSP said "he was awaiting orders”.