The Director General of the Border Security Force (BSF), Rakesh Asthana, ordered on Monday to intensify the patrolling of the international border with Pakistan in the Samba and Rajouri sectors of Jammu & Kashmir with the aim of unearthing more cross-border tunnels like the one used . for the four Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists who died in a shooting on 19 November.
As Indian intelligence agencies are trying to find the names and backgrounds of Jaish’s four agents, people familiar with the investigation said it was clear that the attackers remained inside the tunnel before emerging on the moonless night of November 19. .
Other evidence of this, the people added, came from an Indian soldier (Commander Rathore of Battalion 173) who crawled 150 feet down the tunnel used by the Jaish terrorists and recovered packets of cookies and other food wrappers. The manufacturing date for the “Master Cuisine Cupcake” cookies, a Lahore-based product, was May 2020, and the expiration date was November 17, 2020.
Read also | Pak’s attackers, killed in the Nagrota encounter, were trained as commandos who walked 30 km towards India on a moonless night
The people cited above suggested that there must have been a Pakistani observer, perhaps a Ranger, on the other side of the border to guide the operatives when they must safely exit the tunnel. Intelligence data said the four terrorists were launched from JeM’s Shakargarh camp, and moved towards Mawa in the Samba district, between the Ramgarh and Hiranagar sectors. The collection point was the village of Jatwal; the opposite town on the Pakistani side is Nagwal, which falls under Bari Manhassan near Shakargarh.
The plan was thwarted when a truck carrying the newly infiltrated militants was intercepted by security forces outside the city of Jammu on November 19 and the four terrorists were killed in a shootout.
Read also | 200-meter tunnel used by Jaish terrorists to sneak into India highlights Pak’s role
One case has been recorded in the incident at the Nagrota police station, and recoveries of the bodies show that the terrorists had plans for a major operation: they were carrying Rs 1.5 lakhs in Indian currency, wire cutters, Black pistols Chinese stars, and grenades, as well as assault rifles and nitrocellulose fuel oil explosives, which were also used in the 2019 Pulwama attack.
After the discovery of the tunnel, Asthana requested special tunnel inspection teams to track the international border, as the entire belt is sensitive to JeM infiltration. Other Pakistani groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al Badr, are known to infiltrate through the Line of Control (LOC) further north from the Uri and Kupwara sectors.
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