Truckers on Jammu-Srinagar highway come under militant attack

Truckers on Jammu-Srinagar highway come under militant attack
PRINCE JAHANGIR & ANIL DUBEY

BANIHAL/UDHAMPUR, NOV 22: In a clear instance of how unsafe the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway is despite the presence of numerous SPO posts and round-the-clock patrolling by security forces and the police, militants in Army fatigues gunned down five truck drivers and cleaners at two places near Banihal on Tuesday night.

The massacre, the second over the past few months on the National Highway, came only a week before the implementation of the Central Government's unilateral ceasefire in view of the holy month of Ramzan. Earlier this year, militants had killed five truckers. Six people were reportedly injured in last night's firing by militants.

Significantly, the police and security forces found out about the killings during the wee hours of Wednesday morning after three of the injured went to a hospital at Ramban and narrated the entire episode. Only after that did the police at Ramban sent a wireless message to its counterpart in Banihal. The latter reached the spot and shifted the dead bodies and the remaining injured to hospital around 3 am.

More people could have been saved had they got the medical help on time, said one of the injured at Ramban hospital. No one came to their help even from the Army picket on a nearby ridge, a police official added.

Sources say militants surfaced at Sher Bibi on the highway around 8.15 pm, after a night domination patrol party of the Army passed through the area. Donning Army uniforms, one of the militants sat on a chair on the roadside, while others started halting the trucks coming from and going towards Jammu.

As the unsuspecting truck drivers halted at what appeared to be a check-post, the militants asked them to show their identity cards. After looking at the I-cards, the militants segregated Hindus, Sikhs and the Muslims. The Muslims were asked to leave, while others were stopped on the pretext of further checking.

Around 8.45 pm, one of the militants came to the truck drivers and cleaners and asked them to collect their I-cards from the official sitting on the chair. However, as they went to him, they were fired upon from AK rifles. Four people died on the spot and three others were injured.

The gruesome killings did not end here. The militants struck again at Kharpora (Banihal) about 7 km from Sher Bibi after half an hour. There, too, they resorted to the same modus operandi, killing one truck driver and injuring three others.

Sources identified three of the deceased as Jagdish Singh of Chittikund, Baramulla (truck No JK-02-G 1425), driver Tej Ram of Bari Brahmana, Jammu (truck No HR-38-C 4059) and conductor Rachpal Singh of Dhariwal (Gurdaspur) in Punjab (truck No PB-07-E 9315).

The injured included Ranjit Singh of Chatoosa (Baramulla), Anil Kumar, Pawan Kumar and Lakhwinder Singh (all residents of Dhariwal in Punjab), Amrik Singh of Jahangir Puri (Delhi), and Mangal Kumar of Makhanpur (R S Pura) Jammu. All of them have been hospitalised at Ramban and Banihal.

All business establishments in Banihal town were closed as people came to know about the killings Wednesday morning. Security forces and police launched combing operations to track down the militants, but the killers are still at large.