BSF foils sabotage plan in valley
JAMMU, Feb 28 — The BSF has foiled a major Pak plan of carrying out selective killings and sabotage in Rajouri district by seizing large quantities of arms and ammunition from three hideouts during the past 24 hours.

Pak bid to push in mercenaries
From M.L. Kak
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, Feb 28 — Under the new Pak plan battle-hardened foreign mercenaries, including some armymen, are being pushed into Jammu and Kashmir for resolving the leadership crisis that Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen are faced with after more than 30 top insurgents belonging to these groups were eliminated by the security forces in recent weeks.

Official sources said the leadership crisis was more manifest in Rajouri, Poonch, Udhampur and Doda districts than in the Kashmir valley after the security forces launched an offensive and smashed several militant hideouts killing a large number of the top gunmen.

The sources said besides the elimination of a number of top militants a big group of foreign mercenaries had crossed back to Pakistan for performing Haj in Mecca and Madina where a plan had been drawn to formulate a definite strategy to foment turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir. As such Pak agencies were trying to send as many battle-hardened militants as possible into Jammu and Kashmir in the next two months.

Reports said Pak agencies had decided to handover sketches and maps, carrying details about the border routes, nearest border villages on this side of the Line of Actual Control and names of those local residents in the border belt who could give shelter to the infiltrators. Those booked in the arms training camps and those who had been brought close to the border for infiltrating into Jammu and Kashmir had been give these maps so that they cross into Indian territory without the help of trans-border guides.

According to these reports the Pak agencies were forced to abandon the usual procedure of sending guides with each group of infiltrators after more than 10 Pak guides were killed in encounters with the security forces on the border in recent weeks.

The Pak agencies were not prepared to risk the lives of more guides who were to be utilised in other fields.

Another significant development has been in the shape of bold attempts being made by militants, operating in Jammu and Kashmir, to infiltrate into the police force for demoralising policemen through internal sabotage and subversion. Reports said that militants had been directed by agencies across the border to cultivate influential police officials. Yesterday's incident in which five policemen were first abducted from the Chogal police post in Kupwara and then gunned down to death was part of this strategy.

Official sources said internal sabotage could not be ruled out. However, the new strategy has caused concern in the government circles because there had been a series of incidents in different parts of the state in recent months, when the militants donning army or police uniforms were able to strike easily. And this is what might have happened at Chogal post where the militants are said to have entered into the police post wearing police commando uniform. This did the trick and the seven policemen present in the post did not open fire.

The Chogal incident has confirmed fears of experts that the militants may avenge their killings by attacking small police posts. Security experts are of the view that each police post set up in remote and sensitive area should have full strength. Such posts should have no less than 20 men deployed. As many as 20 gunmen most of them foreign mercenaries had stormed the Chogal post.

Another direction to the militants is that they should surface in the areas which had been sanitised by the security forces in the last two years. It is in this connection that militancy-related violence has increased in south Kashmir including the Daksum, Kokernag, Shopian, Tral and Ganderbal, Najan, Safapora, Sumbal areas of Srinagar-Baramula belts.

Senior security officials are of the opinion that those militants who have crossed into the state in recent months are equipped with highly sophisticated weapons. They have reports that some of the 'boys' had been trained in firing surface-to-surface missiles and this had forced the authorities to suspend helicopter sorties by the security forces in hillly belts of south Kashmir.

Conscious of these developments the state government has again approached the Union Home Ministry that additional companies of para-military forces be sent to the state. In addition to this the Centre should release funds for the Rs 190 crore plan for modernising the police weaponry and communications system and for raising two additional battalions of the armed police. The state government has also urged the Centre to plug the infiltration routes on entire 1250- km long border.

BSF foils sabotage plan in valley
Tribune News Service

JAMMU, Feb 28 — The BSF has foiled a major Pak plan of carrying out selective killings and sabotage in Rajouri district by seizing large quantities of arms and ammunition from three hideouts during the past 24 hours.

A spokesman of the BSF said the jawans of the paramilitary forces had launched massive search operations in Berneli forest belt of Rajouri district and spotted three caves which the militants were using as their hideouts in Chalana village, just 4 km from Bal Jaralan, where seven persons had been killed last week.

The BSF cordoned off the hideouts but the militants had already escaped. The arms and ammunition seized, included rocket projectile gun, four rockets with boosters, three assault rifles, 1,715 rounds of assault rifles, 1,005 rounds of heavy machine gun, 14 rifle grenades, 12 hand grenades and seven IEDs.

The BSF has been directed to continue the search operations in the entire Berneli forest belt to sanitise the jungle area.

A PTI report from Srinagar adds that five militants and a policeman were among 12 persons killed and six others were wounded as militants stepped up their activities in the valley since last evening.

Three militants — Manzoor Ahmad Dar, self-styled platoon commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen; Imtiyaz Ahmad Dar, section commander, and Jan Mohammad — were killed in an encounter with the security forces at Pokribal in Rainawari locality of the city.

The encounter broke out when the security forces raided a hideout in the area last night.

Militants lobbed grenades and opened fire on the search party, injuring Inspector Chandhar and Sub-Inspector Bal Krishan of the BSF Constable Farooq Ahmad of the Jammu and Kashmir Police. The troops retaliated and shot dead the three militants. A rifle, two pistols and three magazines were recovered from the deceased ultras.

The bullet-riddled body of a counter-insurgent, Mehraj-ud-Din Sheikh, was recovered by the police from Badubagh in Khanyar locality of downtown Srinagar last night. The victim was reportedly killed by militants.

According to an official spokesman the militants also struck in the Karan Nagar area of the city and killed a Head Constable of the Jammu and Kashmir police, Azmat Ali.

Militants shot dead Abdul Rashid Dar, a former militant of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front at Shrakawara-Kreeri in Baramulla district last evening. Dar was working for security forces as an "informer".

Militants shot at and wounded a girl, Shameema, at her house at Kreeri in the Duroo area of Anantnag district late last night, the spokesman said.