Gurdaspur terrorists had also planned to attack civil lines area, say investigators

Gurdaspur: The three terrorists, who struck at several places in Punjab’s Gurdaspur on Monday, had plans to attack the civil lines area in the district headquarters town besides Dina Nagar police station, investigators said on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_2368286” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. PTI[/caption] The Global Positioning System (GPS) devices the terrorists were carrying were switched on after they crossed into India from Pakistan, probably through a canal of the Ravi river, sources said. The Ravi flows down from Himachal Pradesh to the Jammu border before entering Punjab at Madhopur. It criss-crosses the Indo-Pak border thrice before finally flowing into Pakistan ahead of Gurudaspur and merges with Chenab river. As the currents were very strong, security agencies believe they used one of the canals to enter India and then switched on the two GPS devices, which were recovered from the encounter site at Dina Nagar on Monday. The tracking point on one of the devices showed Talwandi point, Parmanand village and Dina Nagar, while the other had Gurudaspur Civil Lines marked, indicating that the area was also their target. The 15 km stretch from the point they crossed over into India at Bamiyal was covered by the terrorists on foot before they planted five Improvised Explosive Devices on Talwandi-Amritsar railway track, they said. A night vision device has also been recovered from the railway track, sources said. State police chief Sumedh Saini said grenades with ‘Made in China’ markings were recovered from the terrorists who were killed in retaliatory action by the Punjab police commandos. Gurpreet Singh, Senior Superintendent of Police, Gurdaspur, said the bodies of the militants have been kept at the civil hospital and their weapons were being examined. An alert has been sounded along the international border in Punjab and Jammu. Meanwhile, images of the trio have been captured on a CCTV camera placed by a shopkeeper outside his shop at Taragarh intersection just before they entered Dina Nagar town. The 14-second video footage shows three men, wearing Army fatigues walking down the road at 4:55 am with AK-47 assault rifles in their hands, SSP Gurdaspur, GS Toor said. Earlier today, police defused two hand grenades recovered from the encounter scene at Dina Nagar police station complex. The terrorists had made every attempt to conceal their identities and even removed markings from their clothes including underwears. They were not carrying any food items except for some loose dry fruits. The terrorists were carrying three AK 47 rifles, several Chinese-made grenades, besides 10 magazines with more than 200 rounds of ammunition. Seven people including Superintendent of Police (Detective) Baljeet Singh were killed by the terrorists before they were eliminated by the commandos of the Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT) of Punjab police in an operation that lasted 12 hours. PTI