200 militants planning terror strikes on schools, civilian areas ahead of Obama's visit: Army

In a startling revelation, a senior official in the Indian Army on Thursday said that there are inputs that terrorists from across the border might try to infiltrate into India and attack ‘soft targets’ like schools, religious places and other such civilian areas ahead of US President Barack Obama’s visit to India on Republic Day. [caption id=“attachment_2047901” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “200 militants in 36 launch pads across Pir Panchal range are trying to infiltrate into Indian side,” Lieutenant General KH Singh said during a press conference. “There are inputs that terrorists might try to attack soft targets including schools and civilian areas ahead of US President’s visit,” he said. Singh also said that there was co-ordination between Pakistan’s intelligence service Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the terrorists trying to infiltrate India. “These co-ordinating centres between the ISI and the militants has always been there. The co-ordination has gone up to a large scale because they want to energise the military operations abroad,” he told Times Now. “There is every possibility that Pakistan will try to divert some of the fringe elements of the home grown terrorist outfits to Indian side,” Singh said. He also expressed confidence that the security agencies in India were ready to deal with such infiltration bids by terrorists. “All security agencies are alert and we’ll make sure that these terrorists are defeated,” he said. Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag had earlier accused Pakistan of supporting militants. “The persistent terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir showed that Pakistan continued to support militants,” Singh said on Thursday. “We have to maintain the peaceful atmosphere in Jammu and Kashmir, attained with difficulty,” he said on the occasion of 67th Army Day celebrations in New Delhi. “(But) terror attacks show that support (for militants) from across the border continues,” he added. (With agency inputs)