Early Times Report Srinagar, May 23: After three years of lull, militants resurfaced in the summer capital on Monday morning-killing three policemen on the spot in two separate strikes, which put the Valley on high alert, a few weeks ahead of the annual Yatra. It has been the deadliest assault on Jammu and Kashmir Police here since 2013. Security analysts termed the militant strikes, well-planned and carried out by "highly trained" militants, even as there's possibility that same guerrillas were involved in twin-strikes, which have yet again put strategic Srinagar-Jammu highway under scanner. In the first attack at around, 10:00 AM, bike-borne militants appeared in Baghe-Ali-Mardan locality of north city. They killed two cops, believed to be unarmed, from pointblank range, while bullets were pumped straight into the foreheads, a hint that the militants were highly-trained. Sources said the two cops used to be regularly meet at the spot around this point of time. "It means they (militants) had done thorough reccee and identified their targets in a planned-manner," said a police official. One- and-a- half-hour later, another cop was shot dead, this time, eight miles away on the Tengpora highway. The time-gap between the two attacks suggests that the same group of militants might have carried out the attack. "See given the traffic congestion enroute, it takes this much of time to travel from Hawal to Tengpora," said a police official. Though multiple intelligence agencies have started probing the attack, the deadliest in the past three years, prima facie suggests connectivity in the incidents. Given the fact that Srinagar has been a militant free district for three years with no reports of even any sleeper cells operational anywhere in the city, it's being presumed that like the previous attacks, the militants might have taken the highway route to flee. "Given the intelligence network, militants don't stay back in Srinagar," agreed a police official. The last attack on police here took place on June 22, 2013 when two cops were shot dead at busy Hari Singh High Street marketplace which is barely two miles from the Srinagar-Jammu highway. That time, barely two days later, Lashkar -e-Taiba 's divisional commander Abu Qasim had carried out another deadly attack on Hyder Pora highway killing eight army jawans while 11 others were wounded. The spot is just half a mile from where militants carried out the last attack today, something indicative of bypass being the traditional escape route to south and north Kashmir, where militancy has been on revival. The incident comes two days after an encounter with militants in north Kashmir's Kupwara district, in which five militants and a soldier were killed in a fierce gun battle. Sources said security was being beefed up on the highway. "Basically Yatra is round the corner, we cannot take risks," said a police official. |