JeM 'fidayeen' from Pak involved in J&K Army depot attack arrested

Srinagar: Army and Jammu and Kashmir police on Thursday claimed they have arrested a ‘fidayeen’ member of Jaish-e-Muhammad militant group involved in attack on an Army base in Tanghdar area close to the Line of Control three months ago.

The accused identified as Muhammad Sadiq is a resident of Sialkot in Pakistan’s Punjab province. He was arrested during a raid in Kanispora village of north-western Baramulla district, officials said.

At dawn on November 25, 2015, a group of Jaish militants in a ‘fidayeen’ attack targeted the battalion headquarters of Army’s 3/1 GR unit in the Kalsuri ridge of Tanghdar area in Kupwara district from the back with AK assault rifles and 40-mm Under Barrel Grenade Launcher after cutting a perimeter fence and penetrating the premises. They targeted Army barracks and vehicles with small arms and hand grenades, causing damage to them. Also, an oil depot within the camp caught fire in the attack.

Three attackers were killed in retaliatory commando action after commandos from Army’s Parachute Regiment were airdropped near the camp. A local resident Tanveer Ahmed Sheikh, 25, working as a generator operator at the camp was also killed in the militant attack whereas two officers, deputy commandant Colonel Sunil Kumar and a Junior Commissioner Officer (JCO) V.K. Reddy-of the Army were injured.

Army and police officials said that Sadiq has told his interrogators that it was he who set the oil depot to fire and also destroyed several vehicles before he was asked by his accomplices to leave. He has identified the slain militants as Rizwan, Hussein and Malik, officials said.

The officials also said that during his interrogation Sadiq also revealed that the militants had sneaked into Kupwara from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir the previous night using GPS devices and reached the site of the attack after about seven hours walk. Officials said that he belongs to a peasant family of Sialkot and has four other brothers and two sisters besides parents. He was lured into militancy by a school time friend and received training in a Jaish camp for three months before he was asked to cross the LoC as part of the group, he has reportedly told his interrogators.

He told his interrogators that he spent past three months at various places in Kupwara and neighbouring Baramulla. It was some locals who helped him to relocate to Baramulla after he “befriended” them. The security forces, reports said, have detained half a dozen other local youth in a series of raids in the twin districts carried out during past week.