Dressed in army uniform, Militants stormed a police station and then an army camp in Jammu region killing nine people including an army officer in twin suicide attacks after they sneaked in from across the border early today, barely three days ahead of a meeting between Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan.
The three heavily armed militants, believed to be from banned Pakistan-based terror group LeT and who were holed up in the camp of the cavalry armoured unit at Samba for several hours after they barged into the Officers mess, have been killed during a fierce gunfight, Army officials said in Delhi.
The bodies of the three terrorists aged between 16 and 19 are in the custody of the Army, they said.
In the worst terror attack on a security establishment in Jammu region in 10 years, six people including four policemen were killed in the strike on Hiranagar police station in Kathua close to the International Border by the militants while three army personnel including a Lieutenant Colonel died in the attack in Samba, officials said.
"As per preliminary information, the four terrorists came from across the border," Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde told reporters in Delhi.
Lt Col Bikramjeet Singh, the second-in-command of the unit stationed at the camp, was among the three slain Army personnel.
The unit's Commanding Officer (CO) Col A Uthaiah, who was among the three injured at the Army Camp, has been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit(ICU) at a military hospital in Pathankot.
A lesser-known militant outfit 'Shohada Brigade' claimed responsibility for the attack.
"We carried out the attacks in Kathua and Samba in Jammu region," a person who identified himself as Sami-ul-Haq, the spokesperson of the outfit, told PTI on phone. He claimed they were locals.
J and K DGP Ashok Prasad said the militants had boarded an auto at gun point from Hariya Chuk graveyard in village Jhandi, barely one km from the International Border(IB), and asked the driver Roshan Lal to take the vehicle to an Army camp at Hiranagar.
Unable to locate the camp, the militants hurled grenades and stormed the police station at 6.45 AM where they killed a sentry at the gate and then an ASI Ratan Singh and a Special Police Officer. A constable, who was resting on the second floor of the police station, was also gunned down in the indiscriminate firing, Police said.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif are due to meeet in New York on September 29 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
