KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
In the recent history of gun battles in Kashmir, the on-going “encounter” inside the J&K Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) premises seems to be the “longest” one.
It is third day today, fifty two hours have already passed but no official from the security grid is ready to share details other than “the operation is under way”.
It is second such gun battle inside the sprawling premises of EDI on Srinagar-Jammu highway at Sempora Pampore. In February, an employee of EDI, three army soldiers, and three militants died in the encounter when the rebels took position inside the main building of the youth training Institute. The authorities were yet reconciling the first attack that another happened, this time, inside its seven-storey posh hostel building.
On Monday early morning, around 6:30 AM, fire started emanating from the top floor of the building which caught attention of an EDI staffer who thought it was short-circuit forcing EDI director to rush to the office by 7 AM. When the director reached, security establishment had already taken over the building and positioned themselves before the staff was evacuated safely from the EDI premises.
The security establishment used every kind ammunition to evacuate the suspected militants believed to have taken refuge inside the hostel. At least 100 rockets were used during firing at the building, several kilograms of IEDs was used against the militants while as army choppers are flying over to locate the rebels.
Reports said that the security establishment has been taking much care this time around to safeguard its men from any causality. At least two army men and a J&K police cop were injured in the encounter, so far.
Kashmir Life spoke to Srinagar defence spokesperson, Rajesh Kalia, on Tuesday evening and he said, “operation is going on but I can’t give any more details unless the exchange of fire stops.” 36 hours had already passed then.
Police sources said that the elite para-troopers have “cleared four floors of the building” while as media reports said that “one militant has been killed in operation, so far”. But the media reports are quoting unnamed security officials.
This morning, Kashmir Life again rang Kalia, who repeated the same words he used 16 hours ago. “Operation is going on,” he said, “until and unless firing stops, only then I will share details.” He ruled out any causality saying, “unless we recover body/ies, we can’t say anything.”
He, however, said, “there was intermittent exchange of fire going on yesterday.”
A police spokesperson too said that the operation is going but stopped confirming any casualty from militant side.
The current operation under way at EDI has already consumed 52 hours; eight months ago, the forces closed the EDI encounter in 48 hours.
