Srinagar, May 14
The police and the security forces are on high alert to foil any attempts of militants to target the civil secretariat which started functioning for the summer months here last week.
The civil secretariat, like other vital installations of Doordarshan and Radio Kashmir, Srinagar, here has been the target of militants over the years. But the militants stepped up their attacks on the secretariat when a series of rifle grenades were fired during the past two summers. At least three persons were killed and several others injured in two such attacks in September and October, 1999. Similar attacks were made last year but these grenades missed the target and landed in nearby localities.
“There are inputs but there are better arrangements and a larger area has been sanitised”, a senior police officer told TNS here. He added that even if militants made such attempts these grenades may not fall within the premises of the secretariat. The militants may succeed in making a sneak attack in view of the congested localities within a radius of 500 to 600 metres around the secretariat, police sources said.
So far, the police and intelligence agencies are not “aware of any long-range weapons” with the militants. One such weapon, an 82-mm mortar was, however, seized from the Bandipora area in Baramula district in North Kashmir recently. The high-power 82-mm mortar has a firing range of 2-3 km, according to the police, and has an ability to cause devastation within a radius of over 150 yards.
Unprecedented security arrangements have been made around the civil secretariat this year in view of the stepped up attacks by militants during the past two summers and suicide attacks during the recent months. As a part of these arrangements, the traffic has also been streamlined on the roads leading to the civil secretariat. All vendors have been evacuated from footpaths and separate parking slots have been identified by the agencies concerned.
The security arrangements for the civil secretariat and other offices in the summer capital are a rigorous exercise here. The movement of vehicular traffic in Lal Chowk and on the roads leading to the secretariat every summer is regularised and scheduled. During the past couple of years there has been a respite in the road blockades around the secretariat in the morning and evening hours. All types of vehicles were being stopped at these timings to ensure “free and smooth” flow of the official vehicles of the ministers and the senior officials. All these arrangements are being done to foil the designs of militants to foment trouble in the area.
In October 1997, militants planted car bombs in the busy MA Road, which killed a police party and two civilians, while another car laden with heavy explosives was detected in time the same day in the vicinity of the civil secretariat.
The recent stepped up tactics of the suicide teams and the firing of grenades from a longer distances have been keeping the security set-up alert in and around the vital installations, particularly during the summer months, when the government functions here.
