After weeks of being on the boil over the Amarnath land issue, Jammu was gripped with fear today after at least three militants, suspected to have sneaked in from Pakistan yesterday, killed four persons, including an Army junior commissioned officer, and held eight persons — four children, their mother and grandmother and two men — hostage for over 17 hours in a house on the outskirts of the city. The men were the children’s tutor and a neighbour.

The gunbattle between security forces and the militants, which began around 6 am in Chinnore — barely 20 km from the international border — ended around 11 pm tonight when the last of the three militants, according to Jammu SSP Manohar Singh, was shot dead.

According to a jawan who went into the house around midnight, the children were said to be safe while one “male” was dead and another man had bullet injuries in the leg. Both women were safe — the grandmother escaped in the morning and the mother came out of the house after the encounter.

Expressing serious concern over the infiltration and the militant attack, the Amarnath Sangarsh Samiti cancelled its rally at the Parade Ground. The Samiti said that they didn’t want to put lives of people in danger. “Considering national interest as top priority and responding to an appeal from security agencies, the Samiti decided to cancel the Sangarsh rally,” said its convenor Leela Karan Sharma.

The militants, suspected to be among those who had infiltrated into India under cover fire provided by Pakistani forces yesterday, reached the city outskirts in an auto-rickshaw being driven by Dharam Pal, a local resident. It is alleged they were being led by a “guide” on a motorcycle.

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