Sanjeev Pargal   

Huge haul of arms, explosives, ammunition. Four militants, all believed to be Pakistanis, were gunned down in a joint operation by security forces at Rawadi Talla Nullah at village Soudra, about three kilometers from Sunderbani town in Rajouri district during day long encounter today, thus, thwarting a major terror plot by the militants to target security installations in the area.
“It was a recently infiltrated group from the Line of Control (LoC) and was first spotted by the people two days back, then last evening by a shopkeeper and today morning by another group of locals. They had collected food and purchased dry fruit from a shop yesterday. Though the security forces including Army, BSF and Jammu and Kashmir Police had launched search operation for them two days back, they were finally spotted at 10.30 am today, heading towards a Nullah at Rawadi Talla in village Soudra, and engaged in the gun battle that lasted throughout the day. By the evening, all four militants were killed,’’ official sources told the Excelsior.
Sources said it was a very neat and professionally executed operation in which not a single security personnel was injured. The cordons by security forces were laid in such a way that all four militants were trapped from all the sides and they had no exit route. Though they continued to open firing and lobbed grenades repeatedly targeting security forces, they failed to cause any casualties before being eliminated.
They said all slain militants were fidayeens and believed to be Pakistanis though their identity hasn’t been established so far. They seemed to be looking for an opportunity to target security forces installations in Sunderbani area but all security agencies had been maintaining very high alert as they had reports for the last two days that the militants had succeeded into entering Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district, where Pakistan had repeatedly violated ceasefire earlier.
The militants, according to sources, were in possession of large quantity of arms, ammunition, explosives and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which have been recovered from the site of gun-battle. They were wearing combat dresses. All of them were equipped with assault rifles and were carrying bags containing number of grenades, IEDs and ammunition, which indicated that they had come for a long drawn battle after infiltrating inside the security installation but their attempt failed and they were eliminated by the alert security personnel after the day-long operation.
“The militants were very well trained fidayeens, which was evident from the fight they put up for the whole day till they were gunned down,’’ sources said, adding their appearance clearly showed that they were Pakistanis but their outfit was not known immediately. Most likely, they could be belonging to either Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) or Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) outfit.
After eliminating the militants, security forces conducted sanitization operation in the entire area to ensure that there was no other militant left in the areas and that they don’t have laid any booby trap. The operation was declared closed only after the sanitization operation was completed, sources said.
SSP Rajouri Yougal Manhas told the Excelsior after the operation that all four slain militants looked like “foreigners and fidayeens’’. He said security forces have recovered four AK rifles, 18 magazines, four IEDs, number of grenades and ammunition from their possession so far, which indicated that they were well prepared for a long battle.
“It seems that the group of militants had managed to infiltrate into this side under the cover of ceasefire violations from Pakistan but they had run short of food and other eatables, which prompted them to shift to civilian areas in search of food. While a day before, they took food from a house of Bushan Kumar Sharma at Bunpori, there were reports that yesterday, they took dry fruit from a shop. However, the civilians from whom they took food and dry fruit had immediately informed security forces, who had launched search operations in different areas of Sunderbani,’’ sources said.
They added that District Magistrate, Rajouri, Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary had ordered closure of all educational institutions in Sunderbani.
Today morning, the people again spotted movement of the militants at village Soudra and sounded Army, BSF and police, who launched the joint operation and trapped the militants at Rawadi Talla Nullah and eliminated them after day long exchange of gunfight.
Soon after the security agencies declared the operation as over, local people burst in joy and took to streets shouting slogans in favour of Army in Sunderbani. “Bharatiya Sena Zindabad’’ rented the air repeatedly as people celebrated the killing of four notorious Pakistani fidayeens, who had been sent to this side to target security forces and civilians but were eliminated by the brave troops.
Security agencies have lauded the extremely cooperative role played by the people of Sunderbani in sharing each and every information they had about the militants with Army and police regularly, which helped the troops to nail down the militants before they could strike at their installations.
Sources said the view point that Pakistan was resorting to ceasefire violations to facilitate infiltration by the militants has been strengthened with the elimination of four fidayeens, who had freshly infiltrated into this side from Pakistan. The militants, they added, might have taken the cover of ceasefire violations to intrude into this side. It may be mentioned here that troops had foiled number of infiltration attempts by the militants, which were taking place under the cover of shelling and firing from Pakistan side in the twin border districts of Poonch and Rajouri.
This was after a long time that a gunbattle has taken place in the hinterland between militants and security forces in Rajouri as the district had been declared as free of militancy. However, in Jammu region, this was second encounter this year, the first being on February 10 when three fidayeens had struck at Sunjuwan military station, near Jammu City, in which six Army personnel and a civilian were killed while all three militants were eliminated.
The Army has repeatedly been saying that a number of militants were active on launching pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and they could try to infiltrate anytime with the backing of Pakistani troops.
Police parties in the operation were led by DIG Rajouri-Poonch range Deepak Slathia, SSP Rajouri Yougal Manhas, Additional SP Nowshera Master Poppsy, Additional SP Rajouri Mohammad Yousaf, SDPO Nowshera Khaliq Choudhary, DySP Operation Rajouri Sukhdev Singh and SHO Sunderbani Inspector Tilak Raj.

Courtesy: Daily Excelsior: 29th  March, 2018