12-year-old cries ‘militants’, sends police on wild goose chase in Dinanagar

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Dinanagar, August 22

A 12-year-old boy’s story about spotting some armed militants near his school spread panic and sent police of two districts — Gurdaspur and Pathankot — on a wild goose chase on Wednesday.

A student of Class 6 of a missionary school told his class teacher on Wednesday morning that he had spotted two armed militants dressed in black on the school grounds but they escaped when they saw him.

On the child’s insistence, she took him to the school principal, who promptly called up the police control room.

Unwilling to take a chance after two terrorist strikes, Gurdaspur Superintendent of Police Jasdeep Singh informed Pathankot police and set up check posts on the Gurdaspur-Pathankot national highway and began to conduct searches.

His Pathankot counterpart, Rakesh Kaushal, began to work on another lead: police had intercepted a phone conversation two days ago in which the caller told somebody: “Hum Pathankot aa rahe hain. Aap apni tayari rakhna”.

Meanwhile, panicked parents came to the school in droves to take back their children despite the school principal’s attempts to restore calm.

By then, rumours that two militants had begun firing on the school grounds spread across town. Schools in other parts of the town decided to close down for the day.

A few hours after they received the alert, police called off their searches and declared it a false alarm.

Dinanagar is 10 km from Gurdaspur and 18 km from Pathankot. The town had witnessed a terrorist attack on July 27 last year in which seven security personnel and three gunmen were shot dead in a 12-hour gun battle.