According to Jammu and Kashmir Police, handlers on the other side of the Line of Control used drones to provide guns, food and money to militants who carried out an assault in the Poonch neighbourhood of Bata Durian that left five Army jawans dead.
Such assaults are not feasible without local cooperation, Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh said reporters in Poonch. He said that six villagers had been detained for providing the terrorists with refuge before they attacked an army vehicle with explosives and weaponry that had been delivered by drones from Pakistan.
The DGP said that three to five terrorists were responsible for the assault on April 20 and that they seemed to have conducted a reconnaissance of the region before carrying it out. He also added that the detention of the suspects had given the police important information regarding the whereabouts of the attackers and their premeditated plans.
According to the DGP, local suspect Nisar and his family are engaged in feeding and housing terrorists, thus they were detained and eventually arrested. Additionally, they dropped money and weapons using drones.
According to the J&K police chief, Nisar was an Over Ground Worker (OGW) in the 1990s and has been operating covertly.
Speaking about the rise in terrorist activity in the area, DGP Singh said that following the Dangri incident, militant movement has been seen in several locations, suggesting that there are around 12 terrorists travelling across the area in various groups. All of these groups share common handlers from outside the border, according to the DGP.
He also discussed rumours that militants were huddling in the jungle's natural caves. Along with the Army and CRPF, “we are searching the area and mountain ridges,” he continued.
According to the DGP, these gangs infiltrate from Pakistan, conduct reconnaissance, and then undertake strikes. He said, “We have defeated several similar gangs in the past.
Prior to the attacks on Dangri and Poonch, Chinese weapons, according to Dilbagh Singh, were being used in the Valley.
Following a terror attack on an Army vehicle at Bhatta Durrian in Poonch on April 20, which left five soldiers dead and one critically injured, the Army, police, and paramilitary forces have launched a massive search operation in the area's dense forests.
The most recent incident in the border region occurred at a time when security personnel and law enforcement are under fire for failing to find the terrorists responsible for the January 1 murders of seven members of a minority group, including two youngsters, in the hamlet of Dhangri in the Rajouri district.
Since five army soldiers, including a JCO, were killed in an encounter with militants at Chamrer forests in Surankote tehsil of Poonch district on October 11, 2021, there has been an increase in militant violence in the area.
At Bhatta Durrian in the Mendhar tehsil of Poonch, four soldiers, including another JCO, were killed in a gun battle with the same group of militants five days later, on October 16, 2021. The Army spent almost a week looking for militants in the Pir Panjal jungles, but they couldn't be found.
Around four explosions shook the Koteranka tehsil in the Rajouri district between March and April 2022. On August 11, 2022, a terrorist assault on an Army base in Pargal in the Darhal region of the Rajouri district resulted in the deaths of five Army personnel and two terrorists.
Seven minority community members were murdered on January 1, 2023 in Rajouri district's hamlet of Dhangri as a result of gunfire and an IED explosion that was set off by terrorists. Two of the victims were kids.
