Dharamsala, January 9
Following the interception of wireless messages by militants regarding an attack on the Prime Minister and other top leaders by the ITBP in the Nurpur-Chuari area today, the security forces have been put on high alert and services of communication experts are being sought to install high-frequency wireless sets in the area.
It was today that the wireless sets of the ITBP in the Hathidhar forests intercepted a message being flashed in Urdu by the militants. “There was a mention of targeting the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and other top Central leaders” a police official confirmed. Police sources said communication experts had been summoned from outside so that the direction and distance of the place from where the message was flashed could be detected.
The security agencies also plan to install wireless sets with higher frequencies so that the messages of the militants could be intercepted.
The police is also learnt to have arrested two persons from Soldha village near Kotla in Nurpur. The two are being interrogated and it is suspected that they have ISI links. The IG (Law and Order), Mr K.S. Rana, the DIG (North), Mr Prithvi Raj and the SP, Kangra, Mr Sanjay Kundu, are monitoring the situation from a base camp set up at Chuari on the Nurpur-Chamba border.
Mr Kundu, along with a team of an ASP, five DSPs and a force of about 1,000 entered the Nagrota-Kharian and Kot-Paladi forests from different directions as part of the search. An extensive combing operation has been launched following the killing of two Army personnel at an Army firing range near Damtal on January 1. A police team had to be rushed to Jharoli village of Nurpur, late last evening when the pradhan intimated the police that two suspected persons had entered the house of a woman.
According to the police, it was at about 7 p.m. that two persons entered the house demanding food. When she raised the alarm, they tried to take away her five-month child. As the villagers reached her house, they left the child in the backyard of the house before jumping into a nearby nullah.
The police confirmed that as per information given by the villagers, the two fired into the air to scare away people. Though a police team was rushed to the area, so far there has been no clue. The duo also reportedly took away Rs 200 from the house.
