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Militant attack on Srinagar airport repulsed

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

A group of six militants tried to storm the heavily guarded Srinagar airport in central Budgam district on Tuesday afternoon.

In the gunfight that followed at the main gate of the airport, 11 persons -- including the six militants, three Central Reserve Police Force personnel and two civilians -- were killed and eight CRPF personnel and Kashmiri policemen were wounded. The condition of four CRPF men, who were admitted to the army base hospital, is stated to be critical.

Police sources and witnesses said a group of militants hijacked a Jammu & Kashmir State Forest Corporation jeep in the city and drove up to the main gate of the airport.

The six Lashkar-e-Tayiba men wearing army fatigues tried to drive past the heavily barricaded gates. On being challenged, they alighted and attacked the CRPF guards manning the gate with automatic weapons and grenades.

Three CRPF personnel died on the spot while nine others, including three J&K police personnel, were injured.

One of the injured policemen admitted to hospital told rediff.com that the militants stopped the vehicle on the main gate and 'fired indiscriminately'.

"I was lying on the road crying for help when a colleague of mine helped me to safety," he said. The militants, he said, were firing and hurling grenades all around.

Security forces rushed to the spot and engaged the militants. Some militants sneaked into a shop adjacent to the main gate and started firing on the troops from there.

One militant forced his entry into the X-ray room adjacent to the main gate where the baggage of passengers is checked. The troops later laid siege to the area while the policemen guarding the main airport building were alerted.

Minutes after the gunfight began, messages were flashed inside and the main airport building was sealed. Airport guards immediately took up positions all around and on the rooftops.

The Indian Airlines and Jet Airways flights, which had arrived from New Delhi just a little earlier, were still on the runway. Airport officials asked both flights to take off immediately, half an hour before their scheduled departure, for fear that the suicide squad would try to storm the main building. The incoming passengers of both flights had left the airport before the attack.

Top police officials remained in touch with airport security chief Ali Mohammad who personally supervised the arrangements inside when fighting was continuing at the main entrance.

Sources said the militants holed up in the X-ray room and in the shops near the airport were firing on the troops who had encircled them. The troops finally blasted the shops with mortars after a three-hour battle.

The firing stopped after the troops used mortars and rained bullets on the two positions from where militants were firing. Several shops were damaged in the fire.

Immediately afterwards a combing operation was launched in the area during which the bodies of the six Lashkar men were recovered. The bodies of two civilians, including an official of the Ellaquai Dehati Bank identified as Masood Ahmed, were also recovered.

Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah and Director General of Police A K Suri flew to Srinagar on Tuesday evening and visited the area. They met senior police officers and directed them to beef up security at the airport. The situation was reviewed at a high-level meeting late in the evening of senior police and security force officers.

A Lashkar spokesman telephoned local newspapers to claim responsibility for the attack. The spokesman identified all six militants who he said were members of the fidayeen (suicide) squad. Earlier this month, the organisation had claimed that its militants had stormed the airport, but officials had denied it.

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