Daily Excelsior....News Page

2 militants, BSNL official believed dead; Col, Lt Col
among 7 troopers injured
Rs 3 cr exchange destroyed to kill an injured militant
Telecom failure in 15 Corps, Shivpora-Harwan belt

From Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Nov 19: Twenty-four-hour-long gunbattle between two militants and thousands of security forces personnel ended this evening when Army destroyed Rs 3 cr BSNL Sonwar Exchange at Indira Nagar, in close vicinity of the headquarters of 15 Corps in this capital city. Even as authorities believe that both the militants, who had launched a suicide strike last evening, are dead, seven Army personnel—including a Colonel, a Lieutenant Colonel and a Major—have sustained injuries in the operation. A junior official of the BSNL is also believed to have died in exchange of fire.

After an intermittent exchange of gunfire with militants for 20 hours, Army destroyed the Sonwar Telephone Exchange building of the BSNL this afternoon. Officers conducting the operation conveyed to their high command that both the militants, believed to be hiding in the 3-storeyed building, had finally died. They, however, maintained the cordon, saying that the final search operation at the devastated site of the encounter and the adjoining locality would be carried out in the morning on Thursday.

IGP Kashmir Zone, K Rajendra Kumar, who was personally monitoring the joint operation of the Army and CRPF since last evening, confirmed to EXCELSIOR that no dead bodies had immediately been sighted or recovered. He said that two Fidayeen were believed to have got killed. According to him, "at least one militant" had been clearly seen while firing on the security forces and lobbing grenades from the BSNL building. He said that six BSNL officials and seven armed guards of the SSB were "rescued" by Army from the telephone exchange before destroying the same.

Both, IGP Kashmir as well as General Manager BSNL, George Santosh Marshal, believed that a junior BSNL employee, namely Kuldeep Kumar, must also have perished in the inferno. Kumar, a Kashmiri Pandit, had last been seen on duty at the Sonwar exchange building before the militants’ strike. He was neither among the six BSNL staff rescued from the building nor had he established contact with his colleagues, friends or relatives till late this evening. "We have suffered enormous loss. One of our employees is believed to have died. Our exchange, valued at about Rs 3 Cr, has been destroyed and 4,000 telephone lines have been rendered non-functional", GM BSNL lamented while talking to EXCELSIOR. He said that the loss in terms of revenue to the BSNL would be much more as it would take the organisation a long time to relocate and restore the 4000-line OCB.

Marshal said that it would take "pretty long time" for the BSNL to restore the telecommunication system, which has gone completely out of operation in the vast belt from Shivpora to Harwan. He confirmed that it was the worst ever damage to the telecommunication infrastructure and service in Kashmir valley since the eruption of militancy in 1988. Even as Marshal had immediately no precise idea, informed sources said that the worst sufferer of the disruption of telecommunication service was Army itself, which was subscriber to about 1,000 lines out of all the 4,000 rendered dysfunctional. Service to the whole 15 Corps, 31 Sub Area and all other military formations and installation in Badami Bagh cantonment area was being provided from Sonwar Telephone Exchange.

With the total damage to the exchange, over 2,000 households and hundreds of Government offices and camps of security forces have lost contact with the outside in Shivpora, Batwara, Sonwar, Nishat, Shalimar and Harwan localities. While as CRPF and SSB are now relying on their own radio networks, Army has its own wireless communication and telephone exchange. However, its communication system has been affected so badly that mediapersons failed to get the Army version of the gunbattle. This is first time in the last 15 years of turbulence.

IGP, K Rajendra, said that seven Army personnel—including a Commanding Officer of Rashtriya Rifles, a Second-in-Command of the battalion and a Major—sustained injuries during the 24-hour-long operation.

Sources, believed to be best informed about the details, identified the injured Army officers as Col Roy and Lt Col Nayyar of Rashtriya Rifles 32 Bn. As already reported, one CRPF soldier had got killed and two others injured in the initial round of the firing last evening.

Sources insisted that two more buildings, adjacent to the exchange building, also suffered massive damage during the operation. According to these sources, both the Fidayeen had taken shelter inside one of the two buildings belonging to the owners of Chitra Motors after intensive firing and lobbing of grenades last evening. When troops "rescued" all the seven SSB guards from the exchange building, as well as six BSNL officials, militants found it easier to occupy the same. They managed to hide themselves somewhere in the Inspection Quarters situated on the ground floor.

After maintaining silence for several hours, militants opened fire and lobbed grenades on an Army column at 0430 hours. It was in this striking that the most of the Army personnel sustained injuries. In retaliation, troops shot dead one militant while as his accomplice sustained gunshots on his face. With the one-odd wounded militant inside, troops decided to destroy the whole exchange building.

A transformer, which supplied electricity to Indira Nagar locality, was blown up in the morning. It disrupted the entire power supply system in that area. Residents said that disruption of water supply and telephone service followed.

Several families, living close to the targeted formation, were evacuated to safer places before Army and CRPF launched the offensive. They included PDF’s MLA, Usman Majeed. However, National Conference MLA, Mohammad Sayeed Akhoon, refused to shift his family to the Government Guest House at Sonwar. Chief Minister, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, spoke to him personally from Jammu over telephone in the morning and assured him the Government’s best possible help in the situation.

Meanwhile, troops of Rashtriya Rifles 22 Bn have killed two Pakistani militants of Lashkar-e-Toiba during a cordon-and-search operation at Palpora in Dooru area of Sopore today. Official sources identified them as Abu Abdullah and Abu Assad and claimed that the operation was launched on the basis of a specific information.

CBI probing stamp scandal with national security angle

NEW DELHI, Nov 19: Not ruling out linkage of the Indian underworld in Dubai with the stamp paper scam, agency Director P C Sharma today said it was also looking into the ramifications of the scandal from the national security angle.

He also felt that the money involved in the scam could be "much more" than Rs 30,000 crore already estimated.

"As far as in our cases (in the stamp scam), so far there is no such linkage but we cannot rule out because a man who is doing it in such a large way, who was connected to all kinds of people, be it underworld or over the ground...It is just possible," he told PTI here.

Sounding a note of caution on its ramification vis-a-vis national security, the CBI Director said "infact when you look into this kind of cases, it is important that you must look into the security aspect of the cases whether apart from being a money-spinning exercise it is having impact on security. It is a very important issue."

He made it clear that CBI would not be able to take up the investigations in this scam in Maharashtra and Karanatka the Governments concerned but said "we can investigate any of the accused or persons if they figure in our cases."

The CBI has registered three cases in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Gujarat and the links of scamster Abdul Karim Telgi had figured in the Ahmedabad case very prominently.

Sharma said CBI had registered a preliminary inquiry to probe the functioning of security press at Nasik after allegations that some officials were involved in the scam.

Referring to Telgi, the CBI Director said the agency would seek his remand very soon and interrogate him at length.

Making it clear that there was no federal law under which the agency could conduct investigations suo motu, he said that CBI was willing to take up the investigations in the case.

"We are fully prepared to take up the probe. In normal circumstances, where inter-state ramifications are involved, it is always good to have a nodal agency investigating it...," the CBI Director said.

About the money involved in the scam, he said about Rs 30,000 crore had already been estimated but "I am sure it is much more than that because the ramifications, as we know, are in Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh and quite likely it is almost spread out everywhere and it has been going on there for many years." (PTI)