Terrorists were Lashkar men, say police

The three terrorists, who were killed after a 17-hour-long standoff with security forces at Chinore yesterday were, according to police sources, LeT militants. Arun Joshi reports.

The three terrorists, who were killed after a 17-hour-long standoff with security forces at Chinore near Jammu on Thursday were, according to police sources, Lashkar-e-Toyyeba (LeT) militants.

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K Rajendra, inspector General of Police, Jammu zone, told HT: “These were LeT militants and under instructions from their bosses to kill civilians.” The encounter ended with six dead — three terrorists and three hostages — taking the toll to 10.

However, Rajendra said the task of the security forces has not been over with the end of the encounter. A state of high alert was sounded on Tuesday morning after the militants had sneaked into Indian territory from across the LoC in the Kana Chak sector.

“Searches are on in various areas. There is no question of our taking chances,” Rajendra said. He did not rule out the possibility of more militants being in the Jammu border areas or even interiors.

Meanwhile, Sunita Devi, wife of the owner of the house, Billu Ram, told reporters from the Government Medical College hospital that they let the militants in because they were in khakis. But when they started indiscriminate killing, it became clear that they were militants.

Praising the Indian forces for killing three militants, BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said "more than 200 instances of infiltrations have been reported in the past ten-eleven months”.