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In a major terror attack, three fidayeen, believed to have come from Pakistan, today attacked passengers in a moving bus and stormed a police station, killing seven persons, including an SP, while all the terrorists were gunned down after a day-long operation.
In the pre-dawn attack, the terrorists, suspected to be members of either Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) or Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), in army fatigues first targeted a roadside eatery, then sprayed bullets on a passenger bus and later barged into the Dinanagar police station.
Seven persons - three civilians, Superintendent of Police (Detective), Baljit Singh, a Punjab provincial service officer, three home guards were killed by the terrorists, said DGP Punjab Police Sumedh Singh Saini, who led the operation against the terrorists holed up in an abandoned building near the police station.
He said 15 were injured of whom three were in a serious condition in the attack by the terrorists who snatched a white Maruti 800 car and moved about in it before abandoning it.
All the three militants were killed in the 12-hour-long gun battle with the police and elite commandos of the Special Weapons and Tactics Team (SWAT). Chinese-made weapons and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) were recovered from them, Saini said.
Though there was no official word on who the attackers were, they are suspected to have sneaked into India from Pakistan through the unfenced border between Jammu and Pathankot or Chak Hira in Jammu district, according to inputs received by central agencies.
Earlier this year, terrorists belonging to JeM whose fidayeen combatants, clad in Army fatigues, stormed a police station in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua District on March 20 killing six persons, including three security force personnel.
“The operation is over,” a top Punjab police official said at the end of the fierce gunbattle. Combing operations continued for some time after the multiple attacks and the building was sanitised.
According to Punjab Police IG (Counter Intelligence) Gaurav Yadav, SP Baljit Singh succumbed to bullet injuries sustained in the gun battle.
Police said out of those brought to civil hospital at Gurdaspur, seven seriously injured were referred to Amritsar.
They were aged between 15-55 years.
Three militants were killed in the operation, Deputy Commissioner, Gurdaspur, Abhinav Trikha said.
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