Punjab gunfight claims 10 lives Pakistan condemns attack
5 Dariya News (Rouf Pampori)
Gurdaspur 27-Jul-2015
A security operation against militants who stormed Dinanagar police station on Monday in Punjab claimed 10 lives. The deceased included four cops, 3 militants and 3 civilians.According to police four heavily armed militants after stealing a white car (PB09B-7743) stormed into a police station and amid indiscriminate firing made several cops hostage inside the police station.Throughout the day, regular bouts of small arms fire echoed across the town of Dinanagar and the paddy fields around it. Four policemen including Superintendent of Police Baljit Singh and three civilians were also killed, before the government forces neutralized three militants. Police officials said that the siege focused on an abandoned building where the attackers holed up. It dragged on because security forces had wanted to capture at least one of the militants alive.
Police sources added that the attackers entered India from Pakistan two days ago in Jammu and Kashmir.
Minister Jitendra Singh said he did not rule out Pakistan’s involvement.
“There have also been earlier reports of Pakistan infiltration and cross-border mischief in this area,” said Singh, whose constituency in the Jammu region borders Gurdaspur.Attacks on security installations by militants dressed as soldiers or police are common in Jammu, but Monday’s was the first such assault in Punjab in 13 years, according to data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which tracks militant violence.Talking to reporters a police official said that the attackers are suspected to have sneaked into India from Pakistan through the unfenced border between Jammu and Pathankot or Chak Hira in Jammu district to launch the brazen assault about which central agencies had intelligence inputs. Giving details about the attack, police said that the attackers wearing Army uniforms, reached Parmanand village on Jammu and Kashmir's border with Punjab where they attempted to hijack a tempo at 5.30 AM. The tempo driver, however, managed to flee. Later they hijacked a Maruti 800 car after injuring its driver who is hospitalized, before killing a roadside vendor near Dinanagar bypass and spraying a Punjab roadways bus with bullets.They then stormed Dinanagar police station and shot dead a sentry. Showing guts, an alert head constable picked up the rifle of the deceased sentry and fired at the militants.
Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he had spoken to the head of Border Security Force and “instructed him to step up the vigil” on the border.
Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini in his tweets said that an SP and three Home guard jawans were killed. He added that there were three militants and all of them were killed. Later on addressing a press meet, Punjab Police DGP Sumedh Singh Saini gave a chronology of events leading to the elimination of three militants but refrained from commenting from where they came from."They killed one person at the bus stand in the morning and then came to the police station. The sentry at the police station is injured and is now in hospital. During the operation, three home guards were martyred after Punjab Police engaged the three assailants. One of our SP also attained martyrdom. Two other civilians were killled in an adjoining premises of a medical facility," Saini told reporters. Not willing to take a shot on the identity of the attackers, he said amid boisterous chants of Punjab Police zindabad, "It is too early to say from where they have come. The modus operandi of their attack and the combat gear they were wearing must be checked upon. They were carrying two GPS systems, the weapons and ammunition they were carrying were of high quality."Meanwhile, Pakistan said that it was unaware of reports that suggested militants were from that country and said that it has nothing to do with the terror attack. (CNS)