Terrorists ran amuck, torched vehicles, fired indiscriminately

SRINAGAR: Even as the National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths on Monday made a thorough inspection of the site of yesterday's terror strike in Sonmarg area, security and intelligence authorities are still groping in the dark. "We had been receiving inputs about possible attacks on some infrastructure project in the last couple of weeks, but nobody had an inkling about the same being executed at Z-Morh tunnel where no militancy related incident had taken place in the last over 30 years", said a senior official. He revealed that the tunnel project had been almost completed and was about to be inaugurated but no CISF deployment had been provided for its safety.
The construction company APCO Infrastructure, which had bagged the nearly Rs 6,000 crore tunnel project for its subsidiary APCO-Shri Amarnathji Tunnel Private Ltd. in 2015, had been given the ultimate deadline of September 2024 to complete the project. This 6.412 km long 2-lane tunnel with a parallel escape tunnel had been originally allotted by Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to a different company in 2012.
However, the company failed to execute the work beyond two years for financial issues. It was subsequently transferred from BRO to National Highways and Infrastructure Corporation Limited which allotted the same to the APCO Infrastructure subsidiary.
The company had hired 48 'guards' from a private security agency who were nowhere in sight when the terrorists struck on Sunday evening. According to the insiders, an unknown number of terrorists barged into the camp and targeted the personnel at three different spots which were at a distance from one another. Around a dozen people were hit. Of them seven succumbed to injuries and five were rushed to SKIMS.
The terrorists also fired indiscriminately on three vehicles on the premises and set these on fire before departing. "There was no resistance to the terror attack. It created utter chaos and confusion. Things were not clear for over 10 minutes after the first shots were fired", said an insider. He believes that the assailants escaped towards the forest cover on the left side.
The NIA team, led by SSP Sandeep Choudhary, who has served as SSP Srinagar, made a thorough inspection of the spot on Monday. Sources said that the team collected some evidence which indicated that the terrorists had used M-4 and AK series rifles. A formal order of the probe being assigned to NIA is likely to be issued on Tuesday.
According to the residents of Kangan and Sonmarg, no militancy related incident has been reported on this patch of the 400-km long Srinagar-Kargil-Leh highway. Z-Morh falls between Gagangeer and Sonmarg. It is less than 8 km short of the main 14-km Zojila Tunnel. This major infrastructure project of geostrategic and military significance will not only shorten the distance but will also provide the first round-the-year and all-weather road communication connectivity between Ladakh and rest of the country though Kashmir.
The highway goes straight to the base camp of the strategic Siachen Glacier as well as the Line of the Actual Control between India and China. During the Kargil war of 1999, Pakistani troops made sustained artillery attacks to cut off this road and the Indian supplies to Ladakh.
Since there are no major habitations in this area of over 8500 ft altitude, no militancy related incident has been reported from there in the last over three decades. According to the residents of Sonmarg and Kangan, the first and the last major incident took place in 1990 or 1991 when the security forces intercepted a full busload of the militants coming in from PoK. There was a massive encounter in which the troops destroyed the bus and around 60 militants of Allah Tigers group were charred to death.
Terror group The Resistance Front (TRF) on Monday issued a statement through its social media handles, claiming that its commanders had carried out the attack on an infrastructure project of military importance. "The construction of the so-called tunnel, carried out by certain military backed companies in collaboration with a foreign company, is not simply a road and tunnel construction project, but rather a military-grade effort to secure military transportation…These projects, including the one in question, are aimed at facilitating quick and precise military access as needed", said the TRF statement.

Updated On 10/22/2024 1:33:44 AM

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