In 32 years, J&K Forest Department appointed just 59 Range Officers, 84 ACFs

J&K PSC took 9 years to select 35 ROs, 7 years to select 15 ROs, 7 years to select 40 ACFs

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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JAMMU, March 1: In a bizarre contrast to their tall claims on conservation and management of the State’s rich, yet diminishing, sylvan cover, neither the politicians nor the bureaucracy in Jammu and Kashmir has discharged its duty to protect the supposedly top-priority Forest sector. Believe it or not, it is a fact that a total of 59 Range Officers Grade-I and just 84 Assistant Conservators of Forest (ACFs) have been directly appointed in the Territorial Forest Department in the last 32 years.

Most of the ACFs appointed in 1984 have either retired from service or are now close to their superannuation as Conservators of Forest (CF). Similar is the case with the ROs-I appointed in early 1980s.

Since there has been no re-organisation of the department’s lower and middle technical levels for the Kashmir Forest Service (KFS) officers like ROs, ACFs, DCFs/DFOs in the last over 50 years and most of the incumbents have already retired, the number of directly recruited and technically qualified officers has drastically reduced. On the other hand, not even 3% of the 800 unemployed Forestry graduates and post-graduates have been able to get a job in Forest Department.

IAS-IFS commune has taken due care of the promotional prospects of the IFS regular recruits, who are mostly from non-J&K States. With the re-organisation being restricted to only the senior IFS positions, the sanctioned strength of Principal Chief Conservators of Forest (PCCFs) has risen to 3, Additional PCCFs to 7, CCFs to 16 and CFs to 21. On the other hand, the sanctioned strength of ROs-I has been static at 220 and ACFs at 64 in the last 50 years. Under rules, re-organisation of cadres is supposed to be executed once in 10 years.

According to the Forest Department’s official website, there are a total of 66 ROs-I (out of whom 35 have been placed as “incharge ACFs/DCFs” in violation of the Supreme Court of India guidelines and without the approval of Public Service Commission (PSC) and Departmental Promotion Committees (DPCs). Total number of ROs-II is just 34. Even some ROs-II have been posted as “incharge ACFs”. Blue-eyed “incharge ACFs”, who are substantively either RO-I or RO-II, have been conveniently functioning as Divisional Forest Officers (DFOs) as the successive governments have not appointed any DCFs in their divisions.

Politically well-connected of the “incharge ACFs” have been simultaneously holding charge of two or even three divisions.

An application, filed under Right To Information Act by Jammu-based activist Prof S.K. Bhalla, has revealed how Ministers and bureaucrats of successive governments have been insensitive and irresponsible in replenishment of technical human resource in Forest Department.

According to the Government’s reply, after the 1985 direct recruitments, it was on 1-3-1994 and 5-7-1994 that Forest Department referred 21 posts of ROs-I for making selection to J&K PSC. Later, 16 more posts of RO-I were referred to PSC on 24-11-1995 and 15-12-1995. PSC took around 9 years to complete the process. On 23-12-2003, it issued the selection list in favour of 35 candidates who were subsequently appointed as RO-I by Forest Department in 2004.

The second direct recruitment process started in 2004. On 19-8-2004 and 22-3-2005, Forest Department referred 23 vacancies of RO-I for selection of candidates to PSC. Again working at snail’s pace, PSC took 7 long years to complete the process. It issued the selection list of 15 candidates on 22-7-2011 and Forest Department issued the formal appointment orders in favour of the 15 candidates on 4-8-2011.

Subsequently appointment of one candidate in Open Merit category and 8 more in other reserved categories was made 11-6-2012, 18-9-2013 and 24-12-2013.

With this a total of 59 ROs-I were appointed by Forest Department from 1984 to 2016. While as 30% of the RO-I vacancies are supposed to be filled up through direct recruitment by PSC, 70% of the vacancies stand reserved for promotion of ROs-II and Foresters having DDR training.

As regards the ACFs, after 1984, the first direct recruitment through PSC took place in 2004. On 24-5-2004, after years of sluggish exercise by PSC, Forest Department appointed 42 candidates as ACFs.

The second and the last process of direct recruitment of ACFs started in 2004. On 18-6-2004 and 25-1-2006, Forest Department referred 40 vacancies of ACFs for selection of candidates to PSC. After 7 long years, PSC issued selection list in favour of 40 candidates on 16-5-2011 who were subsequently appointed as ACFs by Forest Department on 18-5-2011. Later 2 more ACFs were appointed on 1-12-2011.

Thus a total of only 84 ACFs have been recruited through PSC by Forest Department of J&K Government from 1984 to 2016.

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Mehbooba asks Delhi to involve Pakistan in 2002-type Kashmir initiative

‘I won’t accept CM’s chair that denies PDP role in peace-building’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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JAMMU, Feb 28: In her first open-air speech at a public rally after her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s death on January 7^th, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) President Mehbooba Mufti claimed on Sunday that she would not accept a puppet Chief Minister’s chair that would deny her party a 2002-type role in peace-building and promoting friendship between India and Pakistan. Asking New Delhi to engage Islamabad in a political process, she said late Mufti’s 2002 initiative of Indo-Pakistan friendship was “in danger today”.

“Jammu and Kashmir is not about governance alone. The state is entangled in assorted political and economic complexities both on internal and external fronts, which need to be tackled with resolve through holistic measures to ensure sustainable peace and stability in the State,” Mehbooba said while addressing a PDP workers convention at headquarters of Anantnag district in her home constituency of South Kashmir. She was there to carry forward her party’s membership drive which she launched from Srinagar on last Sunday.

“There’s going to be no peace until India and Pakistan halt their confrontation, until they sit together and respect each other. An atmosphere of sustained mistrust won’t yield anything positive. Today, I don’t see NC or Congress as a challenge to PDP but the fact that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s 2002 Indo-Pakistan friendship has fallen in danger. The essence of my father’s initiative was friendship between the two countries. It led to ceasefire on the borders and opening of roads through LoC. That’s in danger today. Another challenge to PDP is the unemployment of thousands of our youths. Many of them are picking up gun”, Mehbooba said with a reference to the recent fidayeen attack and three-day-long encounter between militants and security forces at EDI complex.

“I am not an ambitious politician who would be hankering after power for getting the status of Chief Minister. I am not dying to see four flags on my Chief Ministerial car and a fleet of Ministers following me with pomp and show. Let it be clear that I am not going to accept the Chief Minister’s chair that doesn’t benefit our youth, that doesn’t ensure development and that denies a 2002-type role to the PDP”, Mehbooba, leader of the single largest party with 28 MLAs and the Chief Ministerial candidate, said.  

“While on J&K’s internal front there are issues of systemic political and economic disempowerment, security concerns, mounting alienation, sense of deprivation, wanton exploitation of state’s natural resources, unemployment, social issues  and unaccountability, on the external front there are issues with Pakistan,” she said and added that no government in J&K would succeed or make a mark unless a holistic approach is adopted by the Centre and the State Government to address all these issues with a concerted effort and with tangible measures.

She said unfortunately the situation in the State started sliding back into uncertainty following the reversal of the development, resolution and reconciliation process set off between 2002 and 2005. She asserted that PDP’s alliance with Congress in 2002 and with BJP in 2015 was guided solely by the “agenda of peace, development and reconciliation” in Jammu and Kashmir.  

“That was our challenge and that will remain so. If we really want to turnaround the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, we will have to not only involve Pakistan in a sustained dialogue but at the same time take some bold political and economic initiatives on the internal front to address the concerns of the State’s people and do away with the past injustices done with them,” she said and added unless such measures are taken no government whether formed by PDP, NC, Congress or BJP is going to make any difference to the people especially at a time when alienation and cynicism has again started taking roots especially among the State’s young population.

Mehbooba said gun and violence were no solution to any problem as the gory era of bloodshed had only brought death and destruction to the State leaving behind a trail of tragedies in almost every family. “We have already seen almost a generation of youth falling prey to the senseless violence and I urge the gun-yielding youth to take cue from the accomplishments of their counterparts and make a mark in the academic and professional fields instead of falling prey to the machinations of the proponents of death and destruction,” she said.

END

[Published in today's STATE TIMES]

Hizb chief Salahuddin’s son among 160 rescued by Police, CRPF at EDI complex

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Feb 24: Son of Pakistan-based United Jihad Council and the formidable militant organisation Hizbul Mujahideen’s chief Syed Salahuddin was among the 160 employees and trainees who were rescued by men of Jammu and Kashmir Police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at the beginning of the fidayeen attack at Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) on Srinagar outskirts on last Saturday.

Syed Mueed Yousuf, who has been appointed as Manager Information Technology by EDI, after his post-graduation in the subject a few years back, was offering his late afternoon (asr) prayers on the first floor of the imposing 5-storey EDI complex when three heavily armed Lashkar-e-Tayyiba militants attacked a CRPF convoy, killing two personnel, and trooped into the government building. Syed broke off his prayers and, like other colleagues---17 men and 5 women---rushed down to the ground floor.

Brandishing their assault rifles, the militants directed all the 23 EDI employees to quickly drop their mobile phones and move out while keeping their arms up so that they were not mistaken as militants and fired upon by ‘fauj’ (Army). “Niklo jaldi, niklo jaldi, fauj aarahi hai. Encounter start hone wala hai. Hamein aap logoon ke saath kuch nahi hai. Hamari jung fauj ke saath hai” (Move out quickly. Army is coming in. Encounter is about to begin. We have got nothing to do with you people. We will be fighting the army), the militants in their mid-20s shouted on the hysterical employees.

All of them jumped out from the rear side and walked to the eight-storey hostel building. In the next few minutes, J&K Police and CRPF stormed the complex and launched the rescue operation.

Militants did not open fire until the CRPF bulletproof vehicles reached the hostel entrance. Syed was among the first few who were asked to board an armoured vehicle. He and others, however, let some junior officials take the first turn. Perched on a vantage position in the canteen, on the attic of the main EDI complex, the militants fired a volley of AK-47 fire that left four CRPF men and the EDI gardener Abdul Gani Mir injured.

Thereafter Syed and others rushed quickly into another bulletproof vehicle. They attempted to rescue an injured Mir in the same vehicle but failed. Thereafter, Mir was rescued in a bulletproof Gypsy of J&K Police. Due to excessive loss of blood he later succumbed to injuries at the hospital.

IGP Kashmir Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gilani told STATE TIMES: “Yes Salahuddin’s son works there as an engineer. He was among the people we evacuated before launching our operation”.

Director EDI Mohammad Ismail Parray too confirmed that Syed Mueed was among the 160-odd employees and trainees evacuated from the complex. He said that some employees had left minutes before the fidayeen attack occurred at 4.15 pm but 23 of them were still in the main building.

Around 130 trainees and seven employees were in the hostel building.

“Had it happened earlier, everybody of them would have got trapped in the main building. We are deeply shocked over the death of our gardener and the damage caused to the main building as we are all emotionally attached to it. But we will restore it to a better glory”, Dr Parray, who has raised the Centrally-funded Rs 37-crore buildings on the premises and made these operational.

Over the last five years, EDI has trained thousands of unemployed youth in different disciplines and helped them start and operate their own industrial and business units.

All the three Lashkar-e-Tayyiba militants, three Army men including two Captains of Special Forces, three CRPF personnel (including one who succumbed to injuries today) and a civilian died in the gunbattle.

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LeT says Pampore fidayeen attack was revenge for Shaista’s killing
 
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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JAMMU, Feb 23: Claiming responsibility for the audacious attack on the security forces, that left five personnel including two Captains and a civilian dead and 13 CRPF men injured at EDI Complex, near Pampore, Pakistan-based jihadist group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba on Tuesday said that the fidayeen strike was to avenge the killing of the University student Shaista Hamid.

Both around 20-year-old, Shaista Hamid and Danish Farooq were killed in the firing by Police and security forces during the course of an operation in which LeT militant Adil Ahmad Shergujri alias Abu Bakar was also killed in Lelhar village of Pulwama district on February 15. While as Shaista was M Ed student with IGNOU, Danish was a regular engineering student with Islamic University of Science and Technology, Awantipora. They had got killed when demonstrators clashed with Police and security forces and disrupted their operation that reportedly helped two holed up militants to escape.

LeT spokesman Dr Abdullah Gaznavi said in the statement that Captain Pawan Kumar had shot dead Shaista and Danish at Lelhar. “Captain Pawan Kumar’s death is the revenge for the death of Shaista. Militants have taken the revenge and done their job”, he said.

Defence sources admitted that Captain Pawan Kumar had participated in the counter-terrorist operation at Lelhar and sustained injury but insisted that Army had not fired upon the demonstrators. They said that Police and CRPF tackled with the law and order problem in the village while as Army dealt with the holed up militants.

LeT spokesman said that Chief of LeT Mehmood Shah paid tributes to the three militants killed in the fidayeen attack. According to him, the militants and the residents of Pampore area were “on one page” in fighting the Indian security forces that was evident from the demonstrations Sunday through Tuesday. He condemned the use of pellet guns against the civilian demonstrators by the security forces.

Even as all the three LeT militants died in the three-day-long gunfight, they left five security forces personnel, including Captain Pawan Kumar and Captain Tushar of Special Forces, dead and 13 CRPF personnel, including as assistant commandant, injured. One civilian, namely Abdul Gani Mir, who was a temporarily engaged gardener with EDI, also died in the encounter.

END

[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

EDI gunfight ends with death of 3 LeT militants

Bodies buried in Uri amid mounting tension in Pulwama district

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
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JAMMU, Feb 22: The 48-hour-long gunbattle between militants and security forces concluded with the death of three unidentified militants at headquarters of the State-run Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) at Sempora Pampore, bordering Srinagar and Pulwama district, on Srinagar-Jammu national highway, on Monday.

Two CRPF men and a civilian had died in the attack on Saturday and three of Special Force personnel, including 2 young captains, died on Sunday. Thirteen CRPF personnel have sustained injuries.

On the third day of the encounter, Security forces and Police maintained a sustained assault on the three militants holed up on the 4th storey and attic of the EDI complex. For most of the time, they remained hidden in the concrete-walled elevator machine room in the attic and the firing from security forces did not cause them any considerable damage until the commandos advanced with the room-to-room search and got them cornered above the 4th storey.

Sources associated with the operation told STATE TIMES that all three of the militants were killed in the final assault around 4.30 pm. Their bodies, along with three AK-47 rifles, and a quantity of other arms and ammunition, were recovered and subsequently despatched to Uri for burial in apprehension of the trouble mounting towards the conclusion of the operation in the vast Pampore belt.

After the authorities learned that the sympathisers and overground supporters of the militants were mobilising people with playing of Pakistani and militant epic songs on the public address system of the village mosques, curfew was imposed in maximum of Pulwama district and parts of Srinagar district in Zewan-Khrew area. Still, some anti-India, pro-Pakistan and pro-Azadi demonstrations took place in Pampore, Sempora and some other villages.

Reports said that over a dozen demonstrators and at least four Policemen sustained injuries in the clashes. According to these reports, attempts were made to arrange a massive demonstration outside EDI so as to disrupt the Army operation and facilitate the militants’ escape. Police and CRPF foiled such attempts.

Director General of Police, K Rajendra Kumar, told STATE TIMES that efforts to identify the slain militants failed as nobody recognised them by their pictures and outfits. “Since no individual, no family in the Valley claimed the bodies, we have reasons to believe that all three of them were foreign terrorists, most probably Pakistani nationals”, DGP said. He said that it appeared to be “a well-recceed and well-planned fidayeen attack as the militants had attacked the CRPF convoy on Saturday well on the national highway and thereafter taken shelter in the huge EDI complex wherefrom they could have held a vantage position, kept the forces engaged in a longer gunfight and caused maximum possible damage”.

“It was a completely exposed spot and there was no chance of escaping. Done at Sempora crossing, where two LeT militants died in an encounter on December 8 last year, all the three militants could have escaped. Their selection of EDI spot makes it clear that that they had no intention of going back”, DGP said. According to him, this group of LeT militants had possibly infiltrated into Kashmir in the month of November or December last year.

Asked if any technical evidence had been seized to ascertain the militants’ original place, route of infiltration, movement in the Valley and their contacts, DGP said that the search operation would take another 24 hours to finish. Earlier head of Army’s Victor Force, Maj Gen Arvind Dutta, maintained that the slain militants were Pakistani nationals and members of their outfit’s suicide squad.

Chairman of Pakistan-based militant conglomerate United Jihad Council and ‘Supreme Commander’ of Hizbul Mujahideen Syed Salahuddin praised the militants for giving “a tough fight” to the Indian forces. In a statement, he also appreciated the support of the local people to the militants. UJC announced a top ‘gallantry award’ for the slain militants.

It was the first major fidayeen strike in Kashmir after the militants attacked a Police installation in Sheeri area of Baramulla during the Assembly elections in October-November 2014. Last year, militants attempted a fidayeen strike on a military installation at Tanghdar in Kupwara district but they were gunned down before entering the main encampment.

END

[Published in today’s STATE TIMES]

EDI gunfight toll reaches 6 including two captains

Part of building damaged in fire but no militant killed in 32 hours of ongoing encounter

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Feb 21: Even as Army lost three Special Forces soldiers, including two young captains, following the fatal casualty of two CRPF men and a civilian in the initial strike, the fierce encounter between a group of the holed up militants and security forces was going on till midnight on Sunday at the State-run Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), near Sempora Pampore, on the outskirts of Srinagar, on Srinagar-Jammu national highway.

Thirteen CRPF personnel, including an Assistant Commandant, had also sustained injuries in the beginning of the encounter on Saturday.

A senior officer of Jammu and Kashmir Police, who supervised the operation at EDI Complex along with senior Army and CRPF officers since it started on Saturday, told STATE TIMES that none of the holed up militants “seemed to be dead” in the 32 hours of the gunfight. “Until now, no militant’s body has been spotted or recovered. We have cleared around 90% of the building and zeroed in on the holed up militants in the remaining 10% of the space on the last floor. We are in the thick of the final assault and sure that all of them will be eliminated. They have no chance to escape”, he said.

The officer said that a portion of the building caught fire during the encounter as the militants fired from AK-47 rifles and lobbed around 20 hand grenades. However, it was extinguished successfully in three or four hours. Special Forces (paratroopers) flown in from Kupwara led the operation while as Police and CRPF provided back up support.

As exclusively reported in Sunday’s issue of STATE TIMES, Special Forces commandos had stormed the EDI headquarters at around midnight on Saturday. In the wee hours on Sunday, Captain Pawan Kumar (23), who was a resident of Jind, Haryana, got critically injured. Later, he succumbed to injuries at Army’s 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar. Lance Naik Om Prakash (32) of Shimla and Captain Tushar Mahajan (26) of Adarsh Colony Udhampur died in the encounter on Sunday. Officials said that their bodies would be despatched to their respective residential places after the wreath-laying ceremony at headquarters of 15 Corps in Srinagar on Monday.

Sources associated with the operation said that the militants, believed to be three to four in number, did not fire or retaliate after 9.10 pm on Sunday. It was an indication that they had decided to prolong the fighting as much as possible. “They can be exhausted or even dead but we have, as of now, no means to ascertain that”, said an officer. He said that the forces also used an unmanned aerial vehicle for flying close to the roof the building and taking pictures of its interior. But, there was little success as the militants fired on the flying machine from some pigeon holes.

According to these sources, a computer laboratory on the left portion of the top floor gutted in the fire even as a state-of-the-art conference hall on the right portion was intact till midnight. Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and former Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Jairam Ramesh had attended a number of conferences and meetings in the hall which also remained venue for review meetings of District Development Board Pulwama. The EDI complex, falling in Pulwama district, is situated exactly on the border of Srinagar and Pulwama districts.

On December 8, 2015, two LeT militants had died at Sempora Crossing, just 200 yards short of EDI complex, in an encounter with Police and security forces during the checking of vehicles.

Sources said that the holed up militants, who include at least one Kashmiri speaking youth, possibly from Pulwama district, made some calls from the cellphones they seized from six EDI employees. A number of telephones are understood to have been put on surveillance to learn about the militants’ contacts and their whereabouts. The employees who spoke to media claimed that the militants asked them to clear out the building before the troops would start firing. They said that Police and CRPF evacuated them successfully even as one civilian, Abdul Gani Mir, who was a temporarily engaged gardener with EDI, died when militants fired from the canteen in the attic.

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Civilian, 2 CRPF men killed in fidayeen attack on highway

3 to 5 LeT militants occupy EDI hqs after attack on CRPF convoy

Commandos storm 5-storey building at midnight; 160 employees, trainees rescued

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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JAMMU, Feb 20: In the current year’s first fidayeen strike in Jammu and Kashmir, unidentified gunmen, believed to be the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba cadres, left two CRPF men dead and 13 others injured even as a civilian died in the cross-firing at headquarters of the State-run Entrepreneur Development Institute (EDI) when a paramilitary convoy on way from Jammu to Srinagar was ambushed on the highway, on outskirts of Srinagar in Kashmir valley, on Saturday.

IGP Kashmir, Syed Javaid Mujtaba Gilani told STATE TIMES that a group of 3 t0 4 suspected militants of LeT opened fire on a CRPF convoy, on way from Jammu to Srinagar, at 4.15 pm on the highway at EDI Complex, near Sempora Pampore, 8 km short of the summer capital. Even as the convoy guards retaliated, two CRPF men got killed and 10 more sustained injuries.

The militants, belonging to a South Kashmir-based LeT module, rushed into the main building of EDI and occupied the complex without suffering any damage. Units from SOG Awantipora and SOG Srinagar, besides Army, rushed to the spot quickly and launched the evacuation operation as more than 150 employees and trainees got trapped in the three major buildings on the premises. While the trainees and employees were being evacuated from the 8-storey hostel building and a guesthouse, militants hiding in the canteen of the main building on the 5^th floor, opened fire.

Two more CRPF men and a 45-year-old EDI gardener Abdul Gani Mir of Gundpora Pulwama sustained injuries. Later, Mir succumbed to injuries at SMHS Hospital. He is survived by three daughters and wife. His brother-in-law had also met similar fate when he died in a rifle grenade attack by militants on Civil Secretariat in Srinagar over a decade back. Mir was also the guardian of the two daughters of his brother-in-law.

IGP said that the Police and security forces maintained a tight cordon around the EDI premises. “Now that we have successfully rescued all the 150-odd civilians, we are planning to launch the decisive assault to eliminate the holed up terrorists”, he said.

CRPF spokesperson Bhavnesh Kumar put the number of the injured at 13. “Two of our men died in the initial attack on the bus while as 9 personnel got injured. Subsequently, during the encounter four more of our men, including an Assistant Commandant, sustained injuries. We are now busy with the operation”, Kumar told STATE TIMES.

Director EDI Dr Mohammad Ismail Parray asserted that all the civilians, including employees and trainees, were evacuated by Police and security forces safely even as a temporarily engaged gardener got killed. He said that he was in Jammu but the employees were constantly in touch with him on telephone and they told him that none of them or the trainees was missing or holed up.

Well-placed sources revealed to STATE TIMES that the heavily armed militants, carrying AK-47 rifles and rucksacks on the back, seized cellphones of six EDI employees who included Arsalan, Wajahat and Feroz. However, they commanded all the 23 holed up employees in the main building to vacate. None of them was harassed or harmed. Two of the militants were Urdu-speaking while as one spoke Kashmiri. They were believed to be three to five in number.

All the militants rushed to the top floor and took positions in the canteen in the attic. They targeted the Police and CRPF men evacuating the civilians from the hostel building in the rear side. It was in this strike that four CRPF men and one civilian sustained injuries. The civilian later died at SMHS Hospital.

While as 23 male and female employees got trapped and were later rescued from the main building, 135 trainees were evacuated in bulletproof vehicles from the 8-storey hostel building and 2-story guesthouse. All of them, including the six whose phones were snatched away by the militants, reached their respective residences.

Supervisor at EDI, Mohammad Maqbool of Tral, told STATE TIMES that he heard a burst of AK-47 gunfire in the hostel building at 4.15 pm. “As soon as we came out, we learned that 4 to 5 militants had attacked a CRPF convoy  and rushed into the main EDI building. We were all evacuated by Police and forces”, he said.

Security forces officers associated with the operation said that they were sure that no civilian was trapped anywhere at 9.00 pm. They said that the 5-storey main building had a basement but none of the militants was believed to be hiding in it. “We are sure that all of them are in the top floor of the building which has around 25 rooms, halls, and library and computer labs.  Special force and SOG commandos are planning to storm the complex at midnight (when this story was being filed) and we are confident to eliminate all the holed up terrorists smoothly”, said an officer.

Sources said that the Government had given strict instructions to the Police and security forces to ensure that the magnificent EDI complex does not catch fire or is not damaged with IED blasts.

On December 9, 2015, two militants had died in a chance encounter with Police and security forces during checking of vehicles at Sempora Crossing, just 200 yards short of EDI complex on the highway.

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