Sunjwan terror attack: 5 Army men,1 civilian killed; 3 JeM men slain

Team Udayavani, Feb 12, 2018, 8:43 AM IST

Sunjwan (Jammu): Security forces have neutralised three terrorists holed up in the Sunjwan Army camp here, while six people, including five Army personnel, have been killed in the attack by suspected JeM militants, Army officials said on Sunday. A defence spokesperson in a statement said three terrorists had so far been killed in the ongoing operation.

A group of heavily armed men struck the sprawling camp of the 36 brigade of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry before dawn on Saturday. Five Army men, including two Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), were killed in the attack. The spokesperson said the third terrorist was also found wearing Army combats and was heavily armed like the other two.

AK-56 rifles, Under Barrel Grenade Launcher, ammunitions and grenades were seized from them, he said. A senior police official had earlier said that four terrorists were killed by security forces. A JCO and a jawan were killed on Saturday.

The spokesperson said during sanitation of residential quarters by the Army commandos, bodies of another JCO, two jawans and an elderly man, the father of a soldier, were recovered. All six of them had been killed by the terrorists in the initial stage of the attack on Saturday.

Ten people, including six women and children, were injured in the attack, the spokesperson said. One of the injured woman was pregnant. She later delivered a baby girl through a caesarean operation and both the mother and child were stable, the spokesperson said.

A 14-year-old boy had suffered a gunshot wound to the head and was in a critical condition. The sanitation and search operations were underway. “The operation is on and the evacuation (of people from the family quarters) is in progress,” Jammu-based Army PRO Lt Col Devender Anand told PTI.

He said a number of families were still in the camp and the Army’s aim was to ensure their safety. “There has been no firing since last night,” the officer said. The latest attack on the camp took place nearly 15 months after the Jammu region was hit by a similar attack.

On November 29, 2016, terrorists had stormed the Army’s Nagrota camp on the outskirts of the city, killing seven Army personnel, including two officers. Three terrorists were gunned down in the operation. The terrorists had struck before dawn on Saturday and managed to sneak into the camp from the rear end of the base after a brief exchange of fire with the sentry guarding the periphery.

“The terrorists entered the family accommodation complex after which quick response teams cordoned off the area and isolated the terrorists, who are holed up in a few houses (inside the camp),” an official said. While there was no action around the main entrance and vehicles were moving along the Jammu-Lakhanpur bypass in front of the camp, Army personnel in bullet-proof vehicles were engaged in the operation to rescue people from the family quarters in the rear side of the base.

Contingents of CRPF and police were posted outside the boundary wall and were keeping curious onlookers at bay to prevent civilian casualties. A high alert has been sounded in Jammu and security beefed up in and around the city.

Intelligence inputs had warned of an attack on an Army or security establishment by Jaish-e-Mohammed in view of the death anniversary of Afzal Guru, who was hanged on February 9, 2013, for the 2001 attack on Parliament House.