Author: M Saleem Pandit
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 17, 2005
A car bomb exploded in Srinagar on Wednesday around the same time a CRPF convoy was attacked. The day before, a 24-hour gun-battle with fidayeen ended with two people dead and wannabe suicide bomber in police clutches. Bombs went off in Delhi killing Diwali shoppers and terrorists struck in Srinagar in a bid to blow up chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad's inauguration.
These bloody acts, security officers, say is proof enough to show that scores of terrorists, waiting across the LoC for an opportune moment to sneak in, actually calmly walked across as military defences on the frontier fell after the October 8 earthquake . The military had initially pooh-poohed the idea that the LoC had melted in parts and people were ambling across. But that was not borne out by accounts of many Kashmiris, on a visit to relatives in PoK, who actually walked across the LoC unchallenged.
Ask Javid Ahmad Pathan, Syed Ali Hyder or Syed Rafiq, Hussain, who had taken the bus to Muzaffarabad. "I walked from Muzaffarabad to Kaman Post and saw no troops. Pakistani troops stopped me, but I showed them travel documents and they left me go," said Javid Pathan, who reached home on October 22 after trekking down from Chakhoti in PoK for three days.
Hyder and Hussain, who is the sarpanch of Noor Khan village in Uri, have the same story to tell and insist that Pakistan Army men, who were also devastated by the quake, asked some perfunctory questions and let them go. They did not confront any Indian soldier as they trudged into Kashmir. Pakistan Army, intelligence report now say, not only allowed legitimate travelers like these there to pass through without let or hinder: but actually pushed through as many as 200 terrorists, belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad into Kashmir from Rajwar, Karnah and Keran and even Uri sector in north Kashmir.
"About 200 militants were waiting to cross into this side of Jammun abd Kashmir from Kupwara and Uri before the quake. They had assembled ion Leeps Valley camp in PoK," another senior intelligence officer told TOI. "Constant vigil and barbed-wire fencing along the LoC was making it difficult for militants to cross over. But the damage to pickets and fencing helped armed militants in infiltrating the Valley," he said, Exact casualties aren't known, but at least 50 Indian soldiers were killed ion the quake and dozens of bunkers and outposts were destroyed.
A senior intelligence officer posted at the LoC told TOI.. "Troops foiled several infiltration bids in Gulmarg and Mechil sectors after the quake, but 20-odd terrorists of Lashkar-eToiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad sneaked in from Rajwar, Nowgam and Keran sectors." The officer said frequent terrorist strikes in the Valley and blasts in Delhi were meant to send a message that terrorists camps were still operational in PoK despite reports of the death of hundreds of militants in various camps due to the quake.