Jammu: The Army foiled several infiltration attempts during last month and killed 14 terrorists who tried to sneak into Kashmir Valley taking advantage of floods. “The Army foiled a number of infiltration attempts, killing 14 terrorists and arresting six other in the month of September,” Defense Spokesman Col S D Goswami said.
“The terrorist activities in the month of September were overshadowed by the floods that affected a large percentage of the population, particularly in Srinagar,” Goswami said.
He said the terrorists tried to take advantage of the flood situations in the Valley to carry out their nefarious activities. However, due to the presence of a robust, counter terrorism and counter-infiltration grid, their designs were foiled.
“In the beginning of the month, even as heavy rains lashed the region and caused large scale flooding of parts of South Kashmir, the Army eliminated three terrorists in an encounter at Hanjan Bala near Shopian on September 2,” Goswami said.
“While Srinagar was reeling under the worst floods, four more terrorists were eliminated at Laribal near Rajwar and Pharkian on September 9 and 10,” he said. Two more terrorists were eliminated at Machhal on September 17 and four more were killed in Tangdhar area on September 19, he added.
“One more terrorist was killed at Lolab on September 30,” Goswami said, adding that in the same month, a joint team of army and police officials arrested four terrorists.
“These included one member of Lashkar-e-Toiba who was arrested on September 17 at Muqam, four Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists were apprehended from Sopore on September 22 and 23 and a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist was arrested on September 25 at Kirpalpura,” Goswami said.
“Though we had to put our men and resources to carry out the relief and rescue operations after the flood hit the Valley, we did not let our guard down,” Lt Gen Subrata Saha, General Officer in Commanding of the Srinagar-based 15 corps had said last month.
