Jammu:
In the aftermath of a deadly and brazen terror strike in Jammu emerges a picture, pieced together from multiple sources of successive failures along the security chain.
The first failure, indeed, a mystery is how the three terrorists crossed the international border. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah told NDTV that the crossing may have happened anytime in the past 12-14 hours before the encounter.
The border is heavily manned by the Border Security Force or BSF, has multiple layers of electrified fencing, floodlighting and thermal imaging surveillance.
And yet, the terrorists managed to slip through. After crossing the border, they arrived at a village, Jangi, about a kilometre inside Indian territory. It appears that they did not have a definitive plan of attack. They hijacked at gunpoint an autorickshaw driver who transports vegetables and asked him to take them to either Samba, 20 kilometres away, or Hiranagar, about two kilometres away. One of the terrorists got in front and two at the back.
According to the statement given to the police, the auto driver says he lied, telling them that both locations were much farther away.
But the terrorists had GPS on their cellphones and appeared to have an idea of their location. After driving around for a while, they spotted the Hiranagar police station. The auto driver, realising that his ruse had not worked, attempted to flee but was shot and wounded.
This is where the second failure took place. The terrorists, two of whom were clad in paramilitary fatigues, first shot the armed guard at the entrance of the police station. They then walked in and shot the duty officer. Two of them climbed up to the barracks on the first floor, and shot a third policeman. A fourth was shot from the first floor as he tried to escape.
Two policemen jumped out of the window, and were shot and wounded.
The Station House Officer or SHO claimed he was getting ready, and turned up after the entire incident was over. It is suspected that he had locked himself into the bathroom.
For the entire eight-nine minutes that the encounter lasted, the terrorists were unchallenged by the police. None made an attempt to prevent their escape.
Parked in the front yard of the police station was an impounded truck. The driver and his attendant, who were sleeping inside it, were woken up by the noise and attempted to flee. The terrorists shot the attendant, and forced the truck driver to drive towards Samba.
By then, the news of the encounter had flashed over the police wireless. But despite this, in what is the third failure, no barriers or checks were put in place on the highway, nor was any attempt made to pursue them.
By about 8 am, the terrorists had reached their final target, when they spotted the headquarters of the Army's 16th Cavalry tank unit on the highway. This would be the site of the final security failure.
Despite an alert being sounded, only a lone sentry stood guard at the front gate. The Army, it is believed, was not anticipating an attack in Samba. Instead they had mobilised Quick Response Teams to Hiranagar. The terrorists shot the sentry and entered the complex. The Commanding Officer, Colonel Uthiah, was taking his morning walk when he was shot at. He is said to be critical. They then entered the Officer's Mess, where they shot and killed the unit's second in command, Lieutenant Colonel Bikramjit Singh. By the evening, of the three wounded, Sepoy MS Rao succumbed to his injuries.
The absence of the top officers of the unit only added to the delay's in the Army's response. Further complicating matters was the layout of the unit, a sprawling, forested complex with residential quarters, a school and a hospital.
For the next eight hours, a fierce gunbattle raged betwern the security forces and the terrorists. The 600-odd troops inside the unit were joined by additional troops from other, nearby units. By around 4:30 pm, the Army declared that all three terrorists had been killed. They were described as very young, between 16-19, the third slightly older.
Sources in the government are still trying to make sense of what led to these multiple lapses. As one of them told us, "the only explanation is that we got complacent. Something like this, a fidayeen (suicide) attack, had not happened in years, and we weren't prepared."
A day after the deadly Jammu attack, in which 10 people were killed, the Unified Command, J&K's high-level security body which includes the Chief Minister as well as top officials of the Army, the police and the paramilitary forces, will meet to review failures, and find ways to plug the gaps.