Srinagar: Amid revival of militancy in the restive Valley, at least half a dozen militants are believed to have sneaked into the summer capital of Srinagar –putting the security agencies on tenterhooks, Kashmir Observer has learnt from reliable sources.
Official sources said the police have received credible inputs that a group of heavily-armed militants has entered into Srinagar, the City, which is largely seen as a militant-free district since 2012, when reports of revival of militancy first hogged the news headlines.
Though for the last around three years, there were no reports of even any “sleeper cell” of militants being active here, it’s for the first time security agencies apprehend that militants could be hiding in the summer capital.
The sources said militants were spotted in some civil lines areas, mainly in the south City. Police apprehends that the militants could be planning to execute a major strike, presumably along the Srinagar-Jammu highway which has been most vulnerable to such attacks over the years.
A senior official, however, said the reports of presence of militants were received much before the attack at Army headquarters in Uri on September 18.
Sources said the security network has already intensified while police was on alert. Sources said though raids were conducted at several suspect hideouts, till now, there has been no breakthrough.
A police official said there was even a possibility that the militants might have dumped their arms and ammunition at some “safe hideout” before leaving the City, to take refuge elsewhere.
“Nothing can be said with authenticity… They might have dumped the arms and done some reccee before leaving only to return to execute attack,” the official sources said.
In the past four months, the militants made a deadly appearance in the City, at least twice. On May 24, three policemen were killed in two separate attacks in the City, in north and south zones. The same evening, police said, two Pakistani militants were killed in a shootout in Sarai Bala area of the civil lines, where the duo had been putting up as tenants in disguise of college students.
Thereafter, no such incident was reported till August 15, when two militants attacked a CRPF patrol in congested Nowhatta locality, killing the paramilitary commandant and wounding nine of his subordinates. Within hours the militant duo was killed in a gunfight there.
The reports of presence of militants have emerged at a time when public movement across the Valley has been thin in the wake of continued siege and strike since July 8 when militant commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani and his two associates were killed on July 8. Since then Kashmir has been on the boil with at least 86 civilians having being killed and over 10,000 wounded.
The recent attack at the Army headquarters in frontier Uri has already heightened tensions between India and Pakistan with the former contemplating a possible “surgical strikes at terror camps across the LoC.”
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