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| No Pak commandos, foreign militants involved in Wullar | | Three local Hizb ultras, 3 OGWs participated in action; all identified | | Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Aug 30: Police have got identified all the six armed men who had stormed a construction site of the Rs 398 Cr Wullar Conservation Project and warned workers against execution of the works. None of them, according to Police, was either a foreign militant or 'Pak army commando' as erroneously speculated in a section of media.
SP Sopore, Imtiyaz Hussain Mir, confirmed to Early Times that everybody in the group had been identified in the last 48 hours. "We have identified everybody who attempted to cause harassment to the workers and we are sure to tackle with them soon", Imtiyaz said. However, he refused to share details with the argument that it could hamper the investigation. Nevertheless, SP Sopore asserted that no search operation had been conducted by Police or security forces to apprehend the saboteurs after the group of "six masked and armed men" had appeared at the lake spot near Adipora at 10.40 p.m on August 27.
"As of now we have not launched any operation independently or with security forces in Wullar lake area or elsewhere. We are fully aware of the identity and whereabouts of the militants and OGWs involved in the incident and hopeful that we will get them all soon", SP Sopore asserted. According to him, the masked group of gunmen had beaten up a number of the 35 non-Kashmiri unskilled labours besides around 10 Kashmiri skilled labours (drivers etc), snatched away all of their cellphones, warned them against execution of the works and fired a single pistol shot while fleeing after an hour.
"They had dropped back one hand grenade under some building material which went off next morning when the labours resumed work. There was no IED blast as reported in a section of media", SP Sopore said. According to him, minor damage had been caused to a causeway and a workers' shed had been dismantled with a JCB. He said that before leaving the spot, militants returned all the cellphones to the labours but broke all SIM cards, apparently to ensure that nobody called Police or security forces.
"Early in the morning next day, all the workers resumed work as usual and none of them seemed to be frightened to the extent of fleeing the site", SP Sopore said. He said that still as a precautionary measure, a Police party was deployed on the site and it was camping there. While the nearest camp of Army, a company headquarters of Rashtriya Rifles 22 Bn, is situated at Adipora, about 2 Kms from the spot, Sopore township is 6 Kms away.
Even as SP Sopore declined to share details about the investigation, well-placed authoritative sources disclosed to this newspaper that the group comprised three local militants of Hizbul Mujahideen and three more of the outfit's OGWs. While the three active militants carried AK-56 rifles, their OGWs appeared with pistols. According to these sources, one of the six was from Handwara and all five others were residents of Sopore and adjoining villages.
"None among the group was a foreign militant or Pakistani army commando as reported in a section of Press. No search operation has been carried out until today", said a senior Police officer. He claimed that none in the group was even a militant from Lashkar-e-Toiba.
"We have taken cognizance of this incident but we are sure that it is not an organized attempt from the Pakistani establishment or agencies to stall the work of Wullar Conservation Project", said the official. He sought to make it clear that Wullar Navigation Lock (Wullar Barrage) and Wullar Conservation Project were two completely different projects. According to him, next one was being executed only to preserve Asia's largest fresh water lake from encroachments and other damages and the water level of a restricted portion was being raised for submergence of hundreds of acres of land at the fringe that had been encroached upon by unscrupulous villagers.
Significantly, this officer made it clear that the work on the controversial Wullar Barrage stood frozen since 1986 due to objection from Pakistan under Indus Water Treaty signed by the two countries in 1961. He said that the Pakistani delegation headed by Jamaat Ali Shah had been exhaustively briefed about Wullar Conservation Project and there was no objection from Islamabad on record. "Guerrillas and army commandos are never used to settle such international disputes. Even if there is any objection from a party, matter is jointly referred to World Bank that happens to be the arbiter for enforcement of Indus Water Treaty", said the official. |
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