Kashmir - Militants blast police post: 11 killed, 9 injured, 7 kidnapped

DailyExcelsior ^ | 3.16.2003 | Sanjeev Pargal

[swarthyguy]

JAMMU, Mar 16: In a major offensive against police, the militants early today blasted a police post with rockets and grenade launchers killing nine Special Police Officers (SPOs) and two civilians, kidnapped seven persons including police personnel and injured nine others in Ind, about 11 kms from Gool in Ramban police district.

Militants looted all arms and ammunition from the destroyed police post including 28 rifles (20 SLRs, three AK rifles and five Insas) and one Light Machine Gun (LMG). They also set ablaze the police post, a Primary Health Centre (PHC) building and eight houses in the village before fleeing from the spot.

Till tonight, the whereabouts of four police jawans and three civilians, held hostage by the militants, remained uncertain. A massive search operation has been launched by the BSF and police personnel to trace the hostages and eliminate the militants, whose number was stated to be between 30 to 35 with majority of them being the foreign mercenaries. An injured police constable Uttam Singh, who was airlifted here this afternoon, however, put the number of raiders at 100.

Official sources said the militants’ attack appeared to be in retaliation to the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen’s Chenab division ‘commander’ Iqbal Fareed and his four associates by the cops of Ind post on February 25. Fareed was a longest surviving militant and his killing had dealt a big blow to Hizbul Mujahideen outfit.

Sources said a big group of atleast 30 to 35 militants and about 40 to 50 civilians, who were being used as a human shield by the ultras, attacked Ind police post, which was being manned mainly by the SPOs and had a Selection Grade Constable Nissar Ahmed as its Incharge, at 0230 hours today. The militants fired rockets and grenades from the launchers and rained bullets on police post with automatic weapons. Such a heavy attack by the militants took the policemen by surprise and didn’t give any chance to them to retaliate. Two SPOs, who were on guard duty at the post, were killed instantly in the firing.

The militants intruded inside the police post and looted all weapons, ammunition, uniforms and other belongings of the cops and set the police post on fire.

The militants gunned down two civilians Altaf Mir son of Abdul Gani Mir and Shabir Ahmed son of Mohamdu in their houses, located adjacent to the police post. House of Altaf Mir was also torched by the rampaging militants. Later, they also set on fire six more houses and building of a Primary Health Centre (PHC).

Sources said the militants played naked dance of death for more than one hour in Ind. They kidnapped four police personnel including the Post Incharge SGC Nissar Ahmed, who survived the firing and three civilians and whisked them away. The militants left the civilians, whom they were using as a human shield and escaped towards a forest area.

According to sources, two posts of seventh battalion of the Indian Reserve Police (IRP) were located at Ind and Chechwan, about a distance of one and a half kilometers from the police post where the militants struck. However, the IRP personnel made no effort to retaliate the militants’ firing giving them an easy chance to escape.

The civilians, whose houses were set ablaze and staff of the PHC managed to come out in time and survived. The PHC building and six houses were gutted in the fire.

Sources quoting eye-witnesses and injured told EXCELSIOR that the militants shouted slogans in favour of Iqbal Fareed and Nissar Ahmed, a ‘divisional commander’ and an ‘area commander’ respectively of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit, who were among five top militants eliminated by Ind police post personnel on February 25 last. The militants killed two civilians—Shabir Ahmed and Altaf Mir doubting their involvement in the killing of Iqbal Fareed. The militants also left behind a poster in Altaf Mir’s house holding him responsible for giving information to police about the whereabouts of Iqbal Fareed and his associates.

Weapons looted by the militants from the police post were 20 SLRs, one Light Machine Gun (LMG), three AK-47 rifles, five Insas rifles, one mortar gun with 51 mortars, six dresses of police personnel and other belongings of the cops. "Nothing was left in the police post that was reduced to mere ashes in the worst ever militant attack in the area", they said.

Sources confirmed that out of 25 policemen on duty at Ind police post, only two were regular police personnel while rest of them were the SPOs including one ex-serviceman. Nissar Ahmed, a Selection Grade Constable, who was among four police personnel held hostage by the militants, was Incharge of the police post. Surprisingly, no officer was posted in the police post in the militancy-infested area of Ind.

A police handout here said that the police post was established in Ind last year for providing protection to the people. However, mostly the SPOs were posted in the police post, who are not trained to meet the caliber of the well-trained foreign mercenaries. "This was the reason that there was virtually no retaliation from the police post and the militants managed to loot all weapons", reliable sources pointed out.

Ind police post was no exception. According to sources, majority of police posts in the militancy-infested areas of Mahore and Gool besides the posts located in upper reaches of Poonch and Rajouri districts are being manned by the SPOs, ex-serviceman and the Village Defence Co-mmittees (VDCs). Either a head constable, or in some cases, a constable was posted as Incharge of these police posts as no officer is ready to go to the militancy-infested areas. "Since the SPOs have no advanced training, especially to confront the foreign mercenaries, they become vulnerable to the militant attacks", the sources said.

Meanwhile, a message intercepted by the security forces this afternoon indicated that the militants of four outfits had jointly carried out the last night’s raid at Ind. The militants comprised the outfits of Hizbul Mujahideen, Al Badr, Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami (HUJI) and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) outfits. Most of them were the foreign mercenaries.

The BSF and police this morning also launched an air operation to look for the militants and the hostages. This was for the first time that the choppers flew over the hills in Gool to track down the militants.

The SPOs killed in the attack have been identified as Sher Singh son of Prem Singh R/o Sumber, Ramban, Showkat Ali son of Bashir Ahmed R/o Gool, Shadi Lal son of Tirath Singh, R/o Ind, Gool, Farid Ahmed son of Mohd Shaffi R/o Sangaldan, Angrez Singh son of Lal Chand R/o Teli Majra, Ramban, Mohd Iqbal, Khurshid Ahmed, Jathu Ram and Nasib Singh, all residents of Ind. Besides, two civilians Altaf Mir and Shabir Ahmed were also killed.

Four cops, who were missing and were reported to have been held hostage by the cops, were identified as Nissar Ahmed, Selection Grade Constable and Incharge Ind police post, Manzoor Ahmed Wani, constable, Jain Mohd Fagwal R/o Zaman, Gool and Sher Mohd Salaria R/o Chechwan, Gool, both SPOs. Three kidnapped civilians were identified as Ghulam Ahmed Bhat son of Kareem, Abdullah son of Nakla and Mushtaq Ahmed son of Hamid Mir, all residents of Ind.

Injured included Hari Ram son of Naseeb Chand R/o Rajgarh (SPO No. 3), Mohd Latief son of Abdul Rehman R/o Gool (SPO No. 49), Harnam Singh son of Punjab Singh R/o Saripura (SPO No. 453), Bhakar Khan son of Shukar Din R/o Saripura (SPO No. 340), Uttam Singh son of Bahadur Singh R/o Rajgarh (SPO No. 363), Mehtab, 35, wife of Abdul Gani R/o Ind, Hari Singh son of Swaran Singh R/o Dharamkund (SPO No. 509), Des Raj son of Chuni Lal R/o Rajgarh (SPO No. 211) and Nazir Mohd son of Ghulam Qadir R/o Kanti, Ramban (SPO No. 117).

Injured SPO Uttam Singh was airlifted here from Ind this afternoon in view of his serious condition. He had sustained a gun shot on his left eye and was operated upon in the Medical College hospital. His condition was stated to be stable.

Uttam Singh said the militants, who attacked the police post, were about 100 in number. According to sources, the militants numbered between 30 to 35 while rest of them were the civilians, who were being used (by the ultras) as human shield.

SP Ramban Danish Rana left for the spot from Ramban early this morning after getting a report of the incident. He was camping at the spot alongwith enforcement of police and para-military.

Director General of Police (DGP) A K Suri and IGP Jammu Pitambar Lal Gupta flew-in to Ind this afternoon to review the situation. They met local people and promised them that additional security pickets would be established in surrounding areas of Ind to contain growing level of the militancy.

Suri ordered immediate re-construction of Ind police post, which was totally damaged in the militant attack and deployment of trained police personnel in the picket. They also supervised the search operation, which was launched by police alongwith the BSF personnel to trace the missing cops and eliminate the militants. However, a success remained elusive till tonight.

Meanwhile, Governor G C Saxena has expressed grief over the killings. He expressed sympathies with the bereaved families.

Chief Minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed has condemned the killings of 11 persons including nine cops in Ind. Terming the incident as gruesome, he said the enemy within and across the border have stepped-up their planned effort with obvious designs to derail the peace initiative by targeting cops and innocent civilians. He expressed the Government’s resolve to deal with such elements with an iron hand.

Former Chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah, in a statement from New Delhi, also condemned the killings of cops and civilians saying ‘this reflected failure of the State Government’. He said the Government should step-up vigil to eliminate the militants.

This was fourth major act of sabotage by the militants in Jammu region during the last five days.

On Tuesday, the militants had triggered a transistor IED explosion in a sweets shop in Rajouri town killing two and wounding 11 others. On Thursday, another blast took place in a passenger bus in which two persons were killed and 33 others were injured. On Friday afternoon, a fidayeen targeted a Moharram procession and a police party in Poonch town killing two police personnel including a DySP and four civilians.

[swarthyguy]

Score One for the jihadis. Looks like they caught the police sleeping.

[observer5]

Kashmir used to be one of teh most beatiful places on earth. It has now been turend into HELL BY THE ISLAMO NAZIS.

[swarthyguy]

Turned into hell by the Paks.

[cake_crumb]

There is that D@MNED word agan....'MILITANTS'

THEY ARE TERRORISTS, DARNIT!!!

GRRRRRRRRRRR !

[DontMessWithMyCountry]

hmmm, you homed in on precisely what I was thinking. Thanks for reading and speaking my mind for me--this time.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[swarthyguy]

Those kidnapped cops are going to have a short shelf life.

Hope the pain and the agony of the torture and mutilation they are inevitably going to undergo is what, i don't know...but their last moments on this earthly vale are going to be excruciatingly painful.

[cake_crumb]

"Thanks for reading and speaking my mind for me--this time."

You're welcome, LOL. I won't let it go to my head. Most FReepers have a real THING about the media trying to legitimize terrorists by using terminology specifically designed to make them seem somehow legitimate.

[cake_crumb]

"Hope the pain and the agony of the torture and mutilation they are inevitably going to undergo is what, i don't know...but their last moments on this earthly vale are going to be excruciatingly painful."

True....it'll be a miracle if they're resued, but we can PRAY those animals will be caught and the deaths of those officers avenged.

[swarthyguy]

http://www.hipakistan.com/en/detail.php?newsId=en19682&F_catID=&f_type=source

A little payback....

: Indian troops shot dead twelve militants in gunbattles on Monday in held Kashmir, in the wake of a major attack on a police post, officials said.

Militants, meanwhile, shot dead an alleged security force informer, three policemen, an army soldier and detonated two bombs, injuring two people, they said. Security forces overnight gunned down six militants near Baderwah town of southern Doda district, 220 kilometres south of Srinagar, a defence ministry spokesman said.

"Troops cordoned off the area after a tip-off that there was a militant hide-out. The militants opened fire and six of them were killed in the encounter," the spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Bhamwar Singh Rathore, said in Jammu. He said the slain militants were identified as members of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen.

Four more militants were shot dead by Indian army soldiers near the northern township of Handwara, 85 kilometres north of Srinagar on Monday evening, an army spokesman said. An army soldier also died in the encounter, he added.

On Monday police recovered bodies of two of the four policemen abducted by Hizb men from the post they stormed, police said, taking the toll of those killed in the attack to 13. Two other policemen were set free earlier.

Security forces were on Monday searching the forest near the demolished police post at Gool to find the culprits. Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed said the attack on the police post was aimed at derailing his government's peace initiative.

"The enemy within and across the border have stepped up their planned effort with obvious designs to derail our peace initiative by targeting police personnel and innocent civilians," Sayeed said in a statement. He termed the militant storming of a police post as "gruesome." Sayeed declared that his government would deal with such elements with an iron hand. "We are equally determined to continue our sincere efforts for the restoration of peace by winning the minds and hearts of the people," he said.

In a separate incident early Monday, two militants were killed in the southern Anantnag district in "retaliatory firing" by security forces, a police spokesman said. "The fighting erupted when militants hiding in an under-construction structure opened fire at an army patrol injuring two soldiers," he said.

Police said suspected militants shot dead an alleged security force informer and a policeman in the village of Chakepohru in southern Pulwama district on Monday afternoon. Both the victims were Kashmiri Sikhs. A policeman and a taxi-driver were injured in a bomb explosion at Bijbehara township, 40 kilometres south of here, also on Monday, police said.



And the blood flows on, la di di di, ladadada

[swarthyguy]

Update -- Springtime in the Vale of Jihad.

[swarthyguy]

>>Both the victims were Kashmiri Sikhs.

Must've been an Indian plot to kill her own citizens, eh?

[TBP]

Might have been. They do have a histroy of dressing up like "militants" and committing atrocities like this. Two independent investigations and a report in teh New York Times Magazine show that Indian government forces carried out the massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chithisinghpora three years ago this month. Witnesses overheard them speaking to each other in Hindi, not Punjabi or Urdu.

Indian troops were caught red-handed in the act of trying to burn down a Gurdwara and some Sikh homes in another village in Kashmir. The villagers, both Sikh and Muslim, overwhelmed the soldiers and seized their vehicle.

There have been numerous incidents of this type. Some human-rights activists believe that the attack on the Indian Parliament building, which killed only minorities and lower-caste individuals, may have been a crime of this type. "Fake encounters" are a well-known tactic of the Indian police. These are incidents in which the police kill some Sikh, Muslim, Christian, or other minority, then plant "evidence" and claim that the person was killed in an encounter with the police.

The State Department reported that the Indian government paid over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers to kill Sikhs. One such bounty was paid to a policeman who killed a three-year-old boy.

[swarthyguy]

I knew you'd bring upstuff from the past.

It's funny you have this habit; chronologically challenged i supposed could be the syndrome. Not to mention being logically and factually challenged.


When terrorist hide in the sanctuary of religious places, the indians go after them, as Indira Gandhi's valiant, brave, honorable and successful Operation Blue Star againt the scum sikh terrorists (a tiny minority in india, btw, but when have you let facts get in the way) hiding in the gurdwara in Amritsar. A military operation that helped break the back of the kooky khalistanis....

Engaging in polemics and diatribes with no context, selectively and hashing together lines of attack from years ago and mixing them up, engaging in demagogic lies for your pakistani friends.

This was a Pakistani paper. Even they didn't make that claim.

You have such an animus towards the Indians that not even the Pakistanis would take you seriously, though i'm sure they use you very happily.

[TBP]

Those kidnapped cops are going to have a short shelf life.

Not as short as Jaswant Singh Khalra, a human-rights activist in Punjab who did a study of cremation grounds and wrote a report exposing the Indian govenrment's policy of picking up Sikhs, torturing and murdering them, then declaring their bodies "unidntified" and secretly cremating them. According to human-rights studies, over 50,000 Sikhs have been eliminated in this manner.

For exposing this practice, Mr. Khalra was kidnapped by the police on September 6, 1995, while washing his car in front of his house. Six weeks later, he was murdered while still in police custody.

The only witness to the kidnapping was arrested outside the Golden Temple in Amritsar for trying to hand a petition to Jack Straw, the British Foreign Minister who was then the Home Minister.

This kind of atrocity is typical of Indian "democracy." That is why minority-controlled states such as Kashmir, Punjab (Khalistan), Nagaland, and otehrs are seeking to free themselves from Indian government control.

[swarthyguy]

Some human-rights activists believe that the attack on the Indian Parliament building, which killed only minorities and lower-caste individuals, may have been a crime of this type. "Fake encounters" are a well-known tacti

Oooooh, that's really factual -- called humanrights activists -- don't bother, i wouldn't believe anything you claim and this claim is over the top.

Thanks for a good laugh, though. You are funny.

[swarthyguy]

Man, i hope you get paid by the pakis or the chinese for the yeoman work you do on their behalf.

[TBP]

"Hope the pain and the agony of the torture and mutilation they are inevitably going to undergo is what, i don't know...but their last moments on this earthly vale are going to be excruciatingly painful."

As opposed to the driver for a Sikh religious leader who was tied to two cars and torn in half? I'd take you more seriously if you woudl ever condemn acts like that which are committed by the Indian government, but you won't.

[TBP]

The Pakistanis don't give me a penny.

[swarthyguy]

Listen, sweetie, i'm not here to discuss past atrocities that may have een committed in a civil war. You never mention Sikh atrocities or cite them as India Govt plots.
You never condemn jihadis or their sponsors the pissy pakis. So there, nananananananan!!

So, we don't take each other seriously, Good.

The Khalistani movement is over; it only exists in your benighted mind and the lunatic ravings of those whose turbans are on too tight.