Nagrota attack: Intel agencies warned of terror strike on military target

Jammu: Indian intelligence had warned of an imminent strike on a high-value military target in Jammu just ten days before Tuesday’s Nagrota attack which killed 7 soldiers.

According to a report in the Indian Express, intelligence services had been monitoring at least one Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) cell in the Valley which had been plotting an attack on the XVI Corps headquarters in Nagrota for at least two weeks before the Tuesday attack.

Though the Valley-based cell did not carry out Tuesday’s attack, it raises the question as to how the attackers succeeded in traversing the route to Nagrota, and what additional security measures were put in place at sensitive installations.

The attackers appeared to have entered the Nagrota complex by scaling its perimeter wall from the rear. The terrorists then headed towards a complex of buildings which houses officers and their families, killing an officer and three soldiers first.

Efforts were made to rescue over a dozen soldiers, two women and at least two children who were trapped inside the building, leading to the deaths of 3 more soldiers.

The operation suggested that the terrorists were familiar with the Nagrota camp layout and perimeter vulnerabilities, a top military officer was quoted as saying. He claimed that sympathetic civilians may have provided them information on the layout.

Another senior military officer was quoted as saying that the terrorists were linked to LeT and infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir inside the last 72 hours through the Line of Control in the Sundarbani sector.

LeT has been known to be gathering information on military targets in the Jammu region since last year.

There has been no thoroughgoing national audit of security at defence installations across the country in spite of the Pathankot and Uri terror attacks this year, said the report.