NEW DELHI, Dec 1: The Indian security agencies investigating into the construction of a tunnel across the Line of Control in Samba sector in Jammu and Kashmir, may have gone well inside Pakistan by about 200 metres undetected.
The official sources confirmed it after the Border Security Force director-general Rakesh Asthana talked about the operation but stopped short of narrating the incident at the BSF raising day celebration event on Tuesday. Asthana said, “On the basis of the analysis of mobile phones recovered from terrorists eliminated by security forces, on November 22, BSF unearthed a tunnel used by terrorists to infiltrate in Samba sector.” But he did not say anything on the operational part of it.
The official sources also did not disclose if the security personnel had only travelled to Pakistan through the tunnel or over ground. “Security forces went inside Pakistan for almost 200 meters which was the starting point of the tunnel, used by the terrorists eliminated at Nagrota by the Indian forces,” a senior official said. The official sources had disclosed earlier that a BSF officer had entered into the tunnel to look for more evidences of terror operations through it.
The 200-metre long underground tunnel suspected to be used by terrorists for infiltration was detected near International Border on November 22. The tunnel was located from the indications the agencies received from the mobile phones recovered from the possession of the four terrorists killed by them in the Nagrota operation on November 19. The tunnel was detected in a joint operation by the BSF and J&K police.
“It seems terrorists involved in Nagrota encounter used this tunnel as it’s a fresh one. We believe they had a guide who took them till highway,” BSF Jammu frontier, Inspector General, NS Jamwal had said.
The tunnel exit was in thick bushes carefully concealed and meticulously covered with soil and wild growth. The mouth of the tunnel was strengthened and reinforced by the sandbags with markings of Karachi, Pakistan. It was a freshly dug tunnel and appeared to have been used for the first time and the engineering efforts involved in its construction give hints of hands of establishment behind it, the official sources said.
(Manas Dasgupta)