Kodagu :

Twelve persons, including a Lieutenant Colonel, died in two militant attacks on Police and Army formations in Kathua and Samba districts of Jammu and Kashmir yesterday.

The Commanding Officer of the unit, Col. Avin Uthaiya, who was seriously injured in the firing by terrorists, was one of the first people in the unit to react to the attack. He was evacuated to the Military Hospital at Pathankot with injuries in his arm and leg.

Col. Uthaiya is the son of Vir Chakra awardee Mandetira Ravi (retired), a resident of Kakotuparambu village in Kodagu district. He is presently recouping in a hospital in Delhi.

It is said that three unidentified militants in combat military uniform, who were believed to have infiltrated through the meticulously fenced international border in the Raj Bagh area on Tuesday, appeared in an interior neighbourhood of Hiranagar, in Kathua district, in the morning. They commandeered a load-carrier at gunpoint, and on sighting a police station at Hiranagar, they alighted and trooped into the premises, killing the sentry. There they killed three more Policemen and injured three others.

The militants also fired upon the driver and left him wounded when he attempted to escape. Thereafter, they hijacked a truck towards the highway after killing its cleaner who reportedly offered resistance. They abandoned the truck on the highway and used another vehicle to reach an Army camp at Samba, on the road to Jammu.

Both the drivers later revealed to the Police that there were three militants. Sources said the three heavily armed militants stormed the military formation and took positions close to the officers’ mess. Two soldiers and a Lt. Colonel died and two more soldiers sustained injuries. The DIG Jammu said that early reports of six fatal casualties were not true. Some officials initially mistook the injured for the dead, he added.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / September 27th, 2013