Pampore gun battle ends, three militants killed

The standoff between the security forces and militants in Pampore came to an end this evening nearly 48 hours after the terrorists attacked a CRPF convoy and stormed into the EDI building.

"Three militants killed, and a lot of arms and war-like ammunitions have been recovered. They were foreign terrorists and were heavily armed," Major General Arvind Dutta of Victor Force, told the media here.

"Immediately when the terrorists rushed the EDI complex, the local RR unit in conjunction with the J-K police and the CRPF they immediately cordoned the area and ensured that the terrorists who have got cornered do not escape," he added.

Major General Dutta said there was large number of civilians in that building when the terrorists went inside.

"Our main focus was to evacuate them to safety. We launched a joint operation and used bullet-proof vehicles to evacuate 120 civilians from the building. Since the EDI complex is a very big building which has lot of rooms, hence the operation took time to complete," he added.

Major General Dutta praised the brave soldiers, who were martyred in the operation.

"I salute the martyrs, the bravery they showed was commendable. My heartfelt condolences to the family who have taken on this loss bravely," he said.

"As they occupied some of the vantage locations from where they could see our locations but we couldn't see their movement, so at night, we subsequently launched our plan to neutralise the terrorists," he added.

Two officers of the rank of captain and a Lance Naik from the elite Para force of the Army were killed while trying to flush out the militants.

While Captain Pawan Kumar was killed in a pre-dawn exchange of fire, Captain Tushar Mahajan and Lance Naik Om Prakash sustained fatal injuries in the afternoon on Sunday.