NIA team to visit J-K’s Poonch terror attack site

A team from the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will travel to Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir, where five Indian Army soldiers were killed in a terrorist attack on a truck they were travelling in on Thursday.

The NIA team, which includes a Deputy Inspector General and Superintendent of Police rank officers, is expected to visit the scene later on Friday, along with a team of forensic experts, to gather preliminary information about the incident that shocked the nation. Meanwhile, a Bomb Disposal Squad and Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir Police arrived at the scene of the terror attack in Poonch, where five soldiers were killed.

On Friday morning, a massive search operation was launched in the forests of Jammu and Kashmir’s Bata-Doriya area to track down the terrorists who attacked an Army vehicle in Poonch, killing five jawans.

The deceased soldiers, identified as havildar Mandeep Singh, lance naik Debashish Baswal, lance naik Kulwant Singh, sepoy Harkrishan Singh, and sepoy Sewak Singh, were assigned to the army’s Rashtriya Rifles unit and were stationed in the area for counter-terrorism operations.

The incident occurred after an Army vehicle they were travelling in was fired upon by terrorists in the Rajouri sector in Jammu leading to the death of five soldiers, and injuring another. Operations were launched to trace the perpetrators, but so far there was no clarity yet on the attackers.

“The unidentified attackers took advantage of heavy rains and low visibility in the area,” the Army had said on Thursday in a statement, adding the army truck caught fire due to a likely grenade attack.
The Army vehicle was moving from Bhimber Gali to Sangiot in the Poonch district.