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Lashkar Srinagar chief killed in BB Cantt strike
Security loopholes, in-house support evident in action

Excelsior Special Correspondent

SRINAGAR, Nov 4: The Lashkar-e-Toiba militants’ unprecedented strike at Badami Bagh cantonment has finally ended after a nightlong encounter in which six Army officials and one BSF soldier have got killed while as the outfit’s "district commander" Abu Talha Hazari has also died.

After a thorough inspection of the spot and its immediate surroundings, mediapersons today noticed a many security loopholes which have been fully exploited by the suicidal squad of militants. It became clear today that militants had gathered sufficient intelligence information regarding the routes, barriers and installations and a reconnaissance survey also seemed to have been conducted with the possible help of inside supporters.

The biggest lacunae is that a patch of about 300 metres between the two entrances at Batwara was completely unguarded. It is quite easy for anybody to intrude into the protected premises after sunset as at least three entry points, leading into the formation, remain unguarded. Militants have clearly taken the advantage and intruded through the two particular points just 10 yards from the National Highway namely, the unmanned gates of Badami Bagh Cantonment Board Office and Dass Memorial Park. It is extremely simple to alight from a vehicle, enter the premises through any of the three points and reach the Public Relations Office of Defence after crossing two 7-ft 6-inch walls with no barbed wire fencing.

The way militants have done the same and even drawn a sketch of the formation and possible intrusion and escape routes upto the distant Rawalpora outskirts, it clearly suggests a recci as well as an inside hand . Military officials admitted that after the sunset, nobody remains there with the specific duty of guarding the roadline as the Cantonment Board Office (CBO) as well as the Dass Memorial Park remain unmanned. Clearly, the Defence authorities have been labouring under the misconception that nobody would dare to tread into the CBO or the spacious park.

Chief of Staff at 15 Corps, Maj Gen JR Mukherjee, at a briefing today declined to reveal whether Army would order an inquiry into how the militants had managed the intrusion and struck at the highly guarded formation. He said these were "internal matters" of Army which could not be shared with the Press but asserted that a befitting strategy would be adopted so that none of such incidents occurred in future.

Maj Gen Mukherjee, however, admitted that the militants had reached the spot in a bus, alighted at the Dass Park entrance, a little after sunset and reached the PRO’s office through the unmanned park after scaling two walls. The three militants, he said, fired in several directions before reaching the "targeted spot" and a BSF official, travelling in a vehicle towards Pantha Chowk got hit and died. While, one of the intruders provided the covering fire and created confusion, two militants armed with AK-56 rifles and hand grenades barged into the PRO’s chamber and shot him dead alongwith five other unarmed members of the staff. He said that four Army personnel got injured while fighting with the intruders.

Captain Praneet Goel, ADC in the Corps Commander’s Quick Reaction Team (QRT) told EXCELSIOR that he was playing tennis in a track suit when he heard the first shots and a grenade blast. It took him 7 minutes to reach Batwara Gate with 6 armed commandoes and he engaged the three militants in a gunbattle untill the troops laid siege to the area. It was Praneet who rescued the three trapped journalists safely and later shifted them to a secure place. He said that the militants offered a tough resistance and refused to surrender. "I spoke to a militant for 20 minutes from just 10 or 15 yards and asked him to surrender. I shouted that there was a tight cordon from all sides. But, he shouted back asking me to surrender, instead," said Capt Praneet.

After a while, troops from 13 Garhwal of the Sub Area fought the militants. One of them died of gunshot wounds and his dead body was displayed. Maj Gen Mukherjee claimed that he was none but the Lashkar "district commander" for Srinagar, Abu Talha. Last evening, a Lashkar spokesman had told some local journalists on telephone that two of the outfits commanders, namely Abu Talha Hazari and Abu Mawiya, had stormed into the Corps Headquarters and engaged the troops in a bloody battle.

Maj Gen Mukherjee claimed that another militant got killed when the troops destroyed the CBO building but his dead body had not been recovered. As for the third militant, he said that he was "untraced" and search was on to get him. Mukherjee disclosed that militants of the group were supervising the operation from Rajbagh and the trapped cadres were asking them for reinforcement. Such a radio intercept, he said, had been intercepted at 1940 hours.

Maj Gen Mukherjee described the episode as a dastardly attack on Press as three local journalists were also present at the PRO’s office. He said that Lashkar had carried out the operation only to draw attention as also to dilute the otherwise sustained pressure of security forces on the militants in Valley.

Second lease of life for Kashmir lensman
Major embraced death, gave life to scribes

From Ahmed Ali Fayaz

SRINAGAR, Nov 4: Lashkar-e-Toiba can well boast of engineering successful attacks on the Valley’s military formations. The Wednesday evening strike at headquarters of Army’s 15 Corps, in Badami Bagh cantonment, has demonstrated the Pakistanis-dominated guerrilla outfit’s ability to challenge the security forces even at the most protected place in Kashmir. But in Major P Purushottam’s death, it has hunted a dove not a hawk. Accepted, that doves or hawks do matter little for guerrilla’s suicidal squads. This is a different story that, immediately after the strike, Army’s psychological operations pundits have installed at the Batwara Gate a sketch with the slogan in Urdu: "Don’t opt for suicide. Suicide is a sin".

Major Purushottam, who spent the last four eventful years of his career in Kashmir, was extremely poor in the business of propaganda and telling lies — something what the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Defence is generally supposed to do. But, all through his tenure in the Valley, he did a service to the Army — and to the nation — which, perhaps, none had done earlier. The 6-ft 10-inch tall man was the tallest, among the otherwise dreaded armed forces, in etiquettes, mannerism, sobriety and discipline. His heart would always bleed at a death, be that of a civilian, soldier or militant. He would often describe even the slain militants as innocent, contending that the white-collar black-heart politicians and instigators were the real criminals.

This kind of unmatched human quality and philosophical straightforwardness had won him not only credibility but tremendous respect among Kashmir’s media fraternity. For obvious reasons and risks, there could be no newspaper obituaries, but one is witness to the manifest agony of all and sundry, be that a reporter or a lensman. Tears welled up in eyes and few did sleep in town as newspersons were forced to believe that Purushottam stood slain at office.

"Where’s your guard?", this writer asked him, on being escorted in his Gypsy to the home of a fellow journalist whose father had passed away. "God is the best guard," he quipped while driving through the Hizbul Mujahideen supremo Salah-ud-Din’s home-town of Soibug. He narrated how militants had once intercepted him unguarded in Anantnag and allowed him to proceed as he described himself as a UP businessman. "Once the death is ordained, I can be killed at home or the highly-guarded office," he added what ultimately came true last evening.

The day this writer broke the news of the Kargil intrusion and the undeclared war, Purushottam was extremely disturbed. "They have suspected the BGS (Brigadier General Staff) for the leak and we are all in trouble", he said on phone. But when this writer clarified that none of the "suspects" had given the news-break, the PRO simplified that it was not his complaint. With his smile and enviable mannerism, he would always disarm even the most biased critic of Army and a rejoinder would appear prominantly in any newspaper.

Purushottam had a rarer qualification — obviously an unpardonable disqualification in his service: He was against the minutest of human rights violation and, in certain rebuttals, he would candidly point out that it was the official version of his organisation and his person would not essentially corroborate the same.

While choosing death for himself, Maj Purushottam ensured a lease of life for three Kashmiri photojournalists who were his guests at the fateful moment. S Tariq of Asia News International (ANI), Habibullah Naqash of The Asian Age and Fayaz Ahmed of New Delhi Television (NDTV) had called on him in connection with their professional assignment in Baramulla district. All the three explained to EXCELSIOR how their host gave them life while, for himself, embracing death.

"Tariq was at PRO office and we two out in our car when the firing began. We thought it was militants’ attack from outside and rushed into the Major’s chamber telling the Reception we were newsmen. Purushottam served us Kehwa and said it was a shootout outside. Within a couple of minutes, Sharma was hit in the compound and he lay in a pool of blood. As we realised it was the guerrillas’ sneak attack, Purushottam packed us in the bathroom alongwith the poor Runner, Sadhanand. He picked up the phone and tried contact with some officer. We tried to see what he was doing. But he shut our door, too rudely, and forced us to bolt it from inside. Next moment, there was a burst of gunfire. The militant had entered the room and pumped the burst in Purushottam’s head, point-blank," said the tearful Naqash. "Had he not concealed us in the bathroom, we would have been gunned down all," he said of the PRO.

According to the scribes’ statement, Captain Praneet Goel of the Corps Commander’s Quick Reaction Team was equally human. Little knowing whether they were militants or journalists, the leader of the Army’s defensive held the fire and took the four survivors in custody. The militants were still all fire. After the Captain was satisfied that the "captured alive" were journalists, he took them home and served them cigarrettes and food. Family members and Press corps believed the three killed, either in militants’ shootout or the subsequent crossfiring.

However, all the three returned to their colleagues and families amid emotional scenes and surcharged atmosphere. What better could be Maj Purushottam’s rebuttal to the media’s allegations of human rights abuse against the security forces for which the PRO remained at the receiving end during last four years?

For diminutive, Habibullah Naqash it is second lease of life. Naqash has been beaten by police and security forces over a dozen of times while discharging his duties for the last one decade of militancy. His limbs were broken and arms fractured. He was once thrown out of the speedy Gypsy by a police officer. But his first real encounter with death occurred on September 7, 1995 when his associate Mushtaq Ali got killed in the parcel bomb blast at then BBC’s office and he sustained critical injuries. The bomb had exploded in the hands of Naqash, Mushtaq and Yusuf Jameel.