The BSF personnel on the bus which was shot at by the terrorists recover at the Command Hospital in Udhampur
Survivors of the terror attack in Jammu's Udhampur district - unarmed jawans who were caught in a melee of gunfire and exploding grenades - are now recovering at the Command Hospital in the district.
Their horror lasted for more than half an hour, where they watched their friend and colleague Constable Rocky fight to save their lives.
"Constable Rocky did a very daring job. He fired at the terrorist and killed him even though he himself was badly wounded," said Rakesh Kumar, the Inspector General of the Border Security Force (BSF).
Rocky and another BSF jawan Subhendu Rai were ultimately killed but not before Rocky emptied an entire INSAS rifle magazine taking out the terrorist known as Noman. Meanwhile, Subhendu kept the door shut to prevent Noman from entering the bus or else he would have lobbed a grenade virtually guaranteeing a bloodbath in the bus.
Speaking to NDTV at the Command Hospital, Daljit Singh, one of the survivors from Wednesday's attack says, "First they shot at the tyres of the bus. Then they fired at the driver. The terrorists just began firing indiscriminately. Rocky shot and killed a terrorist before dying."
BSF officers say the terrorists picked the encounter spot in Udhampur based on a sound tactical understanding of this location. At the attack site, there's a bend on the road and also a hill feature. The driver of the bus would never have been able to spot Noman, the terrorist who opened fire at close range since he was out of sight, on the other side of the bend. Similarly, they would not have been able to spot the second terrorist hiding in foliage above them, leading investigators to believe this was a well-planned ambush.
As jawans of the BSF grieve, sources say the terrorist captured alive did not break down in sustained interrogation. Instead he smiled at his captors through the night. Sources say this is no misguided young man rather a hard core terrorist trained to play mind games with investigators.
He will be flown to Srinagar today and will likely be taken to all the areas he has named to investigators. It may take days before anyone draws any conclusions on what is the truth and what is a lie.