A valiant fight put up by two groups of soldiers helped avoid a major hostage crisis as the three terrorists stormed into an Army installation at Nagrota near Jammu on Tuesday, official sources said, a day after they lost seven soldiers in the gunfight.
Two women, who were inches away from being taken hostages, also courageously responded as they secured themselves until the Army was able to extricate them along with their babies.
Two young officers, Majors Gosavi Kunal Mannadir and Akshay Girish Kumar, led two separate Quick Response Teams with over a dozen soldiers each to take on the terrorists. Both the young officers were killed, along with a soldier each from the QRTs. The terrorists had already killed three soldiers as they burst into the premises before the QRTs took them on, according to Army sources.
Four unarmed officers, wives of two officers and two babies were a few feet away from the attackers when the QRTs pinned them down and avoided a bigger disaster. Army sources said the women stacked up household items to block the door from being easily opened. As the two QRTs engaged the terrorists, the women and children were rescued first, followed by the four officers.
Attackers had local help?
Security agencies ruled out on Wednesday that the three militants had freshly infiltrated into the country. They believed that they may have been in and around the target area with the help of local sympathisers before arriving at the spot at around 5.30 a.m. on Tuesday.
The security agencies’ investigation remained inconclusive about how the attackers reached the spot and who ferried them and what route was taken.
The attack site is around 65 km from the International Border (IB) and the Valley is over 250 km away.
