Reasi bus attack: Role of terrorists behind IAF convoy ambush suspected

Eyewitness accounts and footprints in the area show there could be two to three terrorists involved in the attack on the bus ferrying pilgrims from Shiv Khori temple to Vaishno Devi shrine on Sunday evening

Search operations continued in dense forest area of Reasi district of Jammu and Kashmir for the third day on Tuesday for the terrorists who attacked a bus of pilgrims and left nine dead and 42 injured on Sunday evening.

Indian Army personnel patrolling a stretch in Reasi district on Monday during a search operation after terrorists ambushed a bus carrying pilgrims on Sunday evening. Nine people were killed and 42 injured in the attack. (AFP Photo)

Deputy inspector general of police, Udhampur, Rayees Mohammad Bhat said that the police had got leads about the attackers. “According to initial information from eye-witnesses and footprints tracked in the area, there could be two to three terrorists involved in the attack on the bus. The investigation is on.”

Investigators said there is a possibility that the group involved in the bus attack looks to be the one that attacked an Indian Air Force convoy in Poonch on May 4 in which a corporal was killed and five others injured.

“The pattern looks the same. The officers are looking at every aspect of the attack,” a senior police official said.

Eleven teams, comprising the police, CRPF and the army, continued their searches in the tough terrain following inputs that the attackers had fled and taken shelter in the dense forest after targeting the bus.

The state investigation agency and National Investigation Agency on Monday collected evidence from the spot of the attack. Police has questioned local residents and got vital information about the attackers.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen injured passengers, all pilgrims from Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, have been discharged from hospitals where they had been admitted.

The 53-seater bus was on its way from Shiv Khori temple to Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in Katra when the terrorists opened fire, fatally injuring the driver. This led to the bus veering off the road and rolling down the gorge near Teryath village of the Poni area of Reasi.