SRINAGAR, Feb 10 (2001) – Police in Indian-ruled Kashmir’s summer capital said on Saturday that their main control centre in the state was back in their control after a bloody attack by separatist guerrillas.
A senior police official told Reuters that nine Indian policemen and two attackers had been killed in the Friday night attack on the complex in the city of Srinagar.
Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, quoted by the Press Trust of India news agency, said that two of the militants who stormed the control room had been killed and two others had escaped.
“This morning we recovered seven more bodies of policemen and two bodies of militants in and around the police control room complex,” the senior police official said, adding that the army had been called in to search the complex for attackers.
“The search operation is over. Two militants who entered the complex have been killed.”
Police said earlier that two policemen had been killed.
A spokesman of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack, saying that a four-member suicide squad had stormed the control centre.
The attackers, who used guns and grenades, stormed the control room late on Friday near the main gate of the complex in the heart of Srinagar.
The Lashkar-e-Taiba spokesman told Reuters that only one of the attackers had been killed and three had managed to escape.
Muslim separatists took up arms against Indian rule in Kashmir 11 years ago. More than 30,000 people have died in the revolt.
Militant violence in Kashmir has continued despite an Indian ceasefire which began on November 28 last year.
Suicide squads of the Lashkar-e-Taiba have launched a series of attacks on Indian security forces since 1999.
Lashkar-e-Taiba spokesman Abu Usma described Friday’s attack as a joint operation of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al Umar Mujahideen in retaliation for what they say were killings of detainees by the Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir police.
Al Umar was reactivated after India released its chief commander Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar in exchange for passengers of a hijacked Indian airliner in December 1999.
