Two suspected militants ‘spotted’ by woman at Dinanagar railway station

Ravi Dhaliwal

Gurdaspur, July 1

Two militant ‘sightings’ in the past seven days, within a 25-km radius, have overwhelmed the ‘understaffed’ police force. A massive search operation was initiated today at Dinanagar after a middle-aged woman claimed to have seen two ‘terrorists’.

On the intervening night of June 30 and July 1, Asha Rani, who lives in Nanak Nagri neighbourhood near the railway station, called the control room and reported seeing ‘two masked men with a heavy build carrying loaded bags’ near her house. Dinanagar SHO Karishma instantly notified the authorities concerned, who then began a search operation.

Rakesh Kaushal, DIG (Border), stated he had notified both the BSF and the Army about the development.

Suhail Qasim Mir, Pathankot SSP, has been assigned extra responsibilities in Gurdaspur.

“Incidentally, the description by Rani matched those of two suspected militants sighted by a villager in Pathankot district on June 25,” said a police officer.

DIG Kaushal oversaw today’s search operation, which was supervised by SP (D) Balwinder Singh Randhawa and DSP Sukhraj Singh Dhillon.

Based on Intelligence Bureau’s findings, the three Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) rebels, who besieged the Dinanagar police station in June 2015, passed by the railway station and planted 5.6 kg RDX on the Dinanagar-Gurdaspur line before heading for the police station. The RDX was spotted by a railway watchman inspecting the track late at night.

Dinanagar is 25 km from Bamiyal, from where the three militants had entered India in June, before laying siege to the police station, resulting in a 10-hour gunfight. Even the four Jaish-e-Mohammed operatives who entered the Pathankot Air Force station on January 2, 2016, had crossed into India from Bamiyal. Since then, Bamiyal has been under constant police surveillance.

The current search operation began around midnight and continued throughout the day.

Despite the huge police posse guarding vital installations at Dinanagar, rumours of various kinds have persisted and the police have to work hard to dispel them.

According to sources, during the 2015 Dinanagar and 2016 Pathankot Air Base attacks, numerous civilians kept reporting sightings of militants to the police. “Sometimes when such attacks happen, residents naturally become anxious and report even the slightest movement as suspicious,” explained a senior officer.

The overworked police force of the districts of Gurdaspur and Pathankot have been further weighed down by search operations like the ones that took place at Dinanagar yesterday and today, and in Pathankot on June 25 and 26. Being understaffed, incidents like these have stretched the force to its limits. This is particularly true in the case of middle-rank officials and the constabulary.