While construction of civilian houses adjacent to Sunjwan Army camp goes on ‘unabated’ but not a single brick has been added in the last three months by the Army authorities to plug the rear portion of the boundary wall of the camp.

On February 10, 2018 a heavily armed group of fidayeen (members of a suicide squad) had breached the perimeter security of the camp in the wee hours before sneaking inside the family quarters.

A court of Inquiry was ordered by the higher Army authorities to pinpoint the exact security lapses in to the suicide attack. However, it could not be confirmed whether the inquiry report has been submitted and what action has been taken against those found guilty in the report.

National Investigation Agency (NIA ) is separately probing the terror attack inside Sunjwan army camp to expose the role of Pakistan based terror outfits.

Five soldiers had sacrificed their lives while one civilian and three terrorists were killed in the operation.

It is learnt the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had sanctioned whopping 1,487 crores in February 2018 to beef up perimeter security of vital military installations across the country including the state of Jammu and Kashmir.

The military bases spread across six commands were directed by the Defence Ministry to prioritise the work based on threat perception and complete the same latest by December 2018.

While work on strengthening perimeter security of several other Army camps is going on across different locations in Jammu region but no headway has been achieved in completing the pending work of Sunjwan Army camp in Jammu so far. A long stretch of the boundary wall still remain covered with only 'tin' sheets. On the other hand civilian construction in the close vicinity of the camp is still going on.

After the terror attack on the camp the local Army authorities have reviewed the camp security and constructed few more watch towers to maintain tight vigil on the suspicious movement of miscreants moving closer to the boundary wall. A madrasa has been established close to the boundary wall in Faridiya colony and most of the students are children of Rohingya settled in the same area.

When this correspondent visited the area on Friday he found large number of houses in the Faridiya colony were locked. Since majority of houses are owned by residents from Kashmir valley they prefer shifting to their parent houses during peak summer season.

Courtesy: The Pioneer, Saturday, 12 May 2018 | Mohit Kandhari | Jammu