Jammu hostage crisis ends; Army kills 3 militants

Jammu, Aug 28: On Wednesday, Aug 27 night the Security forces killed the last of the three militants who held six persons including four children, their mother and paternal uncle, captive in a house on the outskirts of the city of Jammu, ending a 19-hour hostage drama and gunbattle.

"The operation is over. Our Special Forces have killed third militant early today," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel S D Goswami told media. The hostages were found in a safe condition by the army personnel, but three other hostages, including a women, lost their lives in the hands of the militants. They were among the nine people who were holed up in a house.

Thirty five-year-old Sunita Devi, the injured mother of the four children aged between two and nine, was admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu. The children have been identified as Sheetal (9), Vipin (2), Ashad (7) and Kajal (4).

All the three militants were killed during the heavy gunfire exchanged between the army personnel and the militants on Wednesday, Aug 27.

Background of Hostage Drama

The militants got in to Indian side by cutting the fence at the Indo-Pak international border in Jammu on Monday, Aug 25 and then surfaced on Wednesday, Aug 27 morning on the outskirts of Jammu.

One militant was killed in the early stage of the encounter that began around 7 am on Wednesday and the second terrorist was shot dead in the evening after a three-hour lull in the gunbattle, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Jammu K Rajendra told reporters.

IGP Kuldip Khoda said the second militant was killed while he was trying to escape under the cover of darkness.

The militants dressed in police uniforms had entered the residential area of Chinore after their attempt to enter the Cantonement area in the nearby Kanachak area of Jammu was foiled.

They had first opened fire and killed four people and then got into an auto and headed into a residential area where they broke into the house and took seven people hostage, four among them were children, the youngest one was only two years old.

Firing went on for hours before the guns felt silent, but the militant didn't let the hostages go. The Army even got maulvis to appeal to the militants to let the hostages go but that too didn't work. One of the militants was shot dead but two others took the women and children of the family hostage.

OneIndia News