Abid Bashir
Pulwama (NVI): Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh today said that civillian traffic on strategic Srinagar-Jammu National Highway cannot be disrupted and every vehicle checked or frisked, for a little militant movement on the NH.
Addressing a press conference in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, DGP Singh said that there is only 0.1 percent movement of militants on the highway compared to 99.9 civilian movement.
He, however, said elaborate security arrangements are in place to deal with the militant attacks on highways.
“For a miniscule movement of militants, we can’t stop every civilian vehicle and frisk them. However, frisking of a specific vehicle takes place on the basis of an input or a lead as seen in Nagrota, Jammu where a truck was stopped in which militants were travelling. Arms and ammunition was also recovered from the truck,” the J&K Police chief said, in reply to a query that whether fresh arrangements are in place to deal with the highway attacks.
Apart from that, the DGP termed the killing of Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Zahid Tiger in an encounter at South Kashmir’s Pulwama district on Saturday, a big success for security forces. “Every single militant is given an opportunity to surrender during encounters. Recently, we managed to save the life of a newly recruited militant at Dadoora, Pulwama,” he said. Zahid was gunned down by forces along with another Pakistani militant.
He said that at Dadoora, there were three militants and all were asked to surrender. “Two of them fired on forces which was retaliated in which two militants were killed. The slain were Zahid (Tiger) and another one from Pakistan,” the DGP said. “The killing of Zahid is a big success for the security forces. In the gunfight, we managed to save the life of a newly recruited militant from Doda district of Jammu,” he added.
On foreign militants present in south Kashmir, he said that many Lashkar militants from Pakistan are active in that region. “This year we managed to kill over 24 militants from Pakistan. All were associated with LeT. Their presence is a threat to forces and civilians. Efforts are on to kill the remaining foreign militants,” he said.
Replying to another query, the DGP said that infiltration has been low this year as compared to previous years. “However, Pakistan continues to make attempts to drop ammunition through drones and efforts are on to foil their every bid,” he said. “We have framed a counter-strategy to deal with the fresh threat,” he added.
-ARK
