Srinagar, Nov 19: Even as army fired rockets and mortar shells at the BSNL Exchange building at Indira Nagar in high security Badami Bagh area here today to flush out the holed up militants, the 22-hour standoff between the ultras and security forces showed no signs of ending. Rockets and mortar shells were fired at the BSNL exchange building to flush out the militants, believed to be two to three in number, who took refuge in the building after killing a CRPF head constable and three other jawans at 6.15 pm last evening, official sources said.
Although the building caught fire and an adjacent residential house was also gutted, the militants, who were in the first floor at the beginning, shifted to ground floor and were firing in the direction of security forces intermittently, the sources said.
The concrete building has not collapsed so far and the fire has only damaged the wooden furniture, they said. However, all the telephone connections from the Indira Nagar exchange, including the ones in headquarters of Army's 1 Corps, have gone out of order.
Earlier, four army personnel were injured as they rescued 15 persons, including seven Special Security Bureau (SSB) personnel and three employees of the BSNL Exchange.
Bureau Report