Did tight security save Jammu from fresh strike?

NEW DELHI: Was Dinanagar just an accidental site for Monday's terror attack or a pre-defined, final target? The suspected Lashker fidayeen, as per a preliminary assessment by the security establishment, infiltrated from across Pakistan early in the morning but, instead of accessing the usual targets in Kathua, chose to head for a non-descript location in adjoining Punjab.

A theory is that the stepped-up security in Jammu region following a couple of recent alerts, the last being on July 24, forced the militants to take a detour to a less-fortified Punjab. Another says that the militants possibly lost their way, confusing Punjab for J&K, and hit the nearest police station. This theory, however, may be flawed given that the terrorists were armed with GPS device.





The next question that comes to one's mind is why the terrorists chose to hit Dinanagar when they could have travelled further into Punjab and struck at the more happening towns like Amritsar, Ludhiana or Jalandhar. The running hypthothesis here is that when they hijacked the Maruti car and shot its driver, they got spotted by staff of a Punjab Roadways bus.





"They possibly realized that they could not go too far and settled for an attack at the first police station that came their way, it being a symbol of the State," said a senior intelligence officer.

The terrorists stormed the Dinanagar police station, catching the inmates unawares with the initial burst of fire, and found an abandoned shelter nearby where they could hole themselves up and engage the security forces in an encounter.

With the terrorists exhausting their ammunition and going down to bullets in the non-descript Dinanagar building, the security establishment feels a big tragedy may have been averted. For, they could have targeted the Amarnath pilgrims travelling by train through Punjab. Or they may even be headed for the busier towns like Ludhiana and Jalandhar that would have ensured a much wider publicity for the attack.