Police officials take position behind a vehicle during an attack by militants on an army camp at Mesar in Samba district in J&K
The terrorists who attacked a police station and an Army cantonment 20 km apart, killing 10 people in Jammu and Kashmir this morning, are suspected to have crossed over into India only last night or this morning.
(Read)Despite that, and in what points to a serious security lapse, they managed to make their way from Jandi village on the border with Pakistan to Hiranagar in Kathua district of Jammu, where they attacked a police station and killed cops, before hijacking a truck and driving to the Samba district to attack an armoured corp unit. All in a span of about two hours.
Intelligence sources have said that units in the Jammu area had been warned that fidayeen or suicide attackers could launch a strike and yet the three heavily-armed terrorists seem to have entered the Army cantonment in Samba with ease.
The 16 Cavalry armoured regiment has three gates. The terrorists shot the sentry at one of the gates and walked in the officer's mess shouting jihadi slogans. They shot the regiment's second-in-command, Lieutenant Colonel BJ Singh, twice in the stomach at point blank range. Colonel Singh was staying at the mess with his family.
The unit's Commanding Officer has been shot twice - in the chest and shoulder - and is in critical condition.
Quick reaction teams from 2 Sikh and 14 Assam units were rushed to Samba.The terrorists were killed after a four-hour gun battle at the Army camp.
Early this morning, the terrorists first hijacked an auto or tempo used to ferry vegetables from Jandi to travel to the Hiranagar police station. They killed the sentry at the gate, walked in and shot dead three cops.
(Timeline of attacks)The attackers then hijacked a truck, killed the cleaner and forced the driver to drive them to the adjoining district of Samba. About a kilometre from the 16 Cavalry camp, they abandoned the truck, the Army said.
This is the worst attack in Jammu in over 10 years. It comes just three days before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in the US.
In a statement, the PM said, "This is one more in a series of provocations and barbaric actions by the enemies of peace."
(Read)