Taliban in J-K? Police to assess infiltration incidents

New Delhi, Apr 9 (PTI) Amid reports suggesting that some
Taliban elements may have recently crossed over to India's
frontier state of Jammu and Kashmir, the state police is
rushing its teams to border districts to assess the
infiltration incidents in the last three weeks.

Sources in the state Government said that teams would
ascertain the number of infiltrations that have taken place
since March 20 in Gurez, Tangdhar and Kupwara belts of North
Kashmir.

One of the terrorist belonging to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen
(HuM) had been picked up and was being questioned by a
multi-agency team to understand the new strategy of Pakistan's
ISI and other terror groups located in Pakistan-occupied-
Kashmir (PoK), the sources said, adding, the arrested
terrorist hails from North West Frontier Province of
Pakistan(NWFP).

A high-level meeting in Srinagar reviewed the situation
along the border during which the Army reportedly came in for
some criticism and was given evidence of infiltration.

Army officials told the meeting it had conducted regular
recces by helicopters from beginning of March to find if there
was any infiltration. But other security agencies said it was
difficult to spot infiltrators who had camouflaged themselves
with Parka jackets (white) and Balaclava caps, the sources
said.

The sources said three infiltration incidents -- Gurez,
Tangdhar and Zoon Reshi (Kupwara) -- were discussed threadbare
at the meeting.

The first infiltration bid took place on March 20 from
Tangdhar in which a group of 25 terrorists had entered. While
18 of them were killed, seven others managed to sneak into the
valley.

In the second bid, 20 terrorists infiltrated from Gurez
between March 26 to March 28 out of which two were killed and
one has been caught alive.

Another group of seven militants had also come in from
Kupwara but was caught in an avalanche at Shamsbari range in
North Kashmir.

The sources said 10 more militants had entered through
Zoon Reshi in Kupwara out of which two had been gunned down.

The security forces had recovered snow boots, parka
jackets, GPS and Satellite phones from the encounter sites,
the sources said. PTI SKL
SAK
NNNN