JK convoy ambushes: 15 troops killed in last one year

NEW DELHI: Fifteen troops have been killed and over 60 injured in half-a-dozen militant attacks on convoys or road opening parties of central security forces in Jammu and Kashmir in the last one year.

As per a Home Ministry report, militants have attacked security forces with precision in the last one year. Despite launching only six such hits, they inflicted fatal injuries on 15 soldiers from BSF and CRPF while injuring 63 of them.

In all these cases, there was an element of surprise as the militants targeted the convoys that have remained vulnerable while they travel within the state, unleashing heavy fire from automatic weapons, it said.

The report also suggested that security agencies, as per an intelligence assessment, fear that attacks like the last week's ambush of a CRPF convoy in the Valley could see an upward trend in the coming months.

A total of four terrorists were killed by the security forces as part of their retaliatory action after the strikes during the said period, the report said.

The Border Security Force lost two of its men when militants targeted their bus in Udhampur district in August last year followed by a similar assault on a CRPF contingent in Bijbehara where 5 personnel got injured.

The militants targeted a Central Reserve Police Force convoy at Pampore in February this year killing 2 men of the paramilitary and injuring eight others.

Similarly, on June 3, militants ambushed a BSF party in Bijbehara in Anantnag district when they were on a routine movement killing three troopers.

Nine BSF men were injured in this attack.

On June 13, a lone militant targeted a security force picket in Karal nullah area of Udhampur district. Prompt response from the CRPF troops neutralised him but not before he had killed three people including a civilian.

The last in the series was the attack on the CRPF bus in Pampore on June 25 where two terrorists killed eight personnel and injured 22.

Meanwhile, security forces have now decided to "tweak" their standard operating procedures in the wake of these incidents, with the CRPF declaring that they will provide an enhanced bullet-proof security cover to its men travelling in convoys.

The efforts include providing armour plates to vehicles, using mine protected vans after withdrawing them for anti-Naxal operations to other states and increasing the use of bullet-proof jackets by troops.

CRPF Director General K Durga Prasad had yesterday said the force will enhance vehicle checks in the Valley in coordination with JK police to identify terrorists travelling undercover, well in time.