Two Pakistani terrorists wearing’suicide vests’ were slain two days before the Prime Minister’s visit to J&K.

According to senior officials, two suspected Pakistani terrorists “wearing suicide vests” were killed during a nearly five-hour encounter near the Sunjwan military station in the Jammu region on Friday, just two days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first official visit to the state since it was split into two Union Territories in August 2019.

However, a CISF Assistant Sub-Inspector, S P Patel, was killed when terrorists opened fire on a bus transporting security personnel, they added. In addition to police and security workers, nine individuals were injured in the gunfight.

Four suspected militants were killed in a military operation in Baramulla, north Kashmir, while two migrant labourers were fired at by suspected militants on the outskirts of Srinagar, according to officials.

The Jammu engagement took place just yards from the military station’s back outer border wall in the Jalalabad region, in the same direction that terrorists had penetrated the site for attacks in 2003 and 2018. Two terrorists raided the military station in 2003, killing twelve soldiers, and five soldiers were among nine slain in 2018.

On April 24, the Prime Minister will visit the region to inaugurate a number of power and infrastructure projects, including the 8.45-kilometer all-weather Banihal-Qazigund tunnel, which would cut the distance between Jammu and Srinagar by 16 kilometres and the travel time by about two hours. Modi will be joined by Union Minister Giriraj Singh and UAE business leaders.

The terrorists murdered near the military post, according to DGP Dilbagh Singh, “hailed from Pakistan and owed allegiance to Jaish-e-Mohammad.” “They were wearing suicide vests,” he explained, “which they would have detonated to cause extra harm if they had run out of ammunition.”

“It appeared to be a recent infiltration operation, and they had arrived with the intent of carrying out an attack.” It was all part of a larger plot to destabilise Jammu’s tranquil climate. If they had been successful in their attack, it would have jeopardised the Prime Minister’s visit,” he stated.

Singh, on the other hand, dismissed reports that militants planned to attack the Prime Minister’s rally on April 24 at Palli village, Samba district.

The murdered militants were found with a satellite phone, three AK 47 rifles, ammo, “a big amount” of hand grenades, IEDs, a wireless set, food, energy drinks, and medicines, according to the DGP. He explained, “They had all the things that fidayeen carry with them.”

Security forces conducted an operation in the Sunjwan area on Thursday night, according to senior sources, after receiving intelligence that two militants had been dispatched from Pakistan to assault security troops or an Army camp in the Union Territory.

“Around 3.40 a.m., militants hiding in a nullah near the house of a local PDP leader climbed on the roof of a workshop and started fire on a police party at a checkpoint on the road leading to a colony outside the military station,” a senior police official said.

Five police officers were hurt in the shooting, according to the officer. “In the meantime, a bus carrying CISF officers arrived on the scene, and a bullet fired by the terrorists hit ASI Patil,” the officer stated.

“The terrorists then descended from the workshop’s roof and proceeded to the neighbouring residence of the workshop owner, who was not present.” Inside the house, his wife and two children did not open the doors and turned out the lights. The militants then took refuge in a restroom near the residence, according to the officer.

“Police and security officers tightened their perimeter and contacted the workshop owner, who was staying in another home in the area.” Following that, the police relocated his wife and children to a safer area and honed in on the bathroom where the militants were hiding, killing both of them around 9.30 a.m., according to the officer.

“Before the last attack, security forces ordered local residents to move to safer locations because the militants were hiding in a residential area.” “Some bullets even hit the walls of local PDP leader Rashid Malik’s nearby house and his vehicle parked in the courtyard during the exchange of fire,” the officer claimed.

The sound of gunfire was mistaken for firecrackers, according to locals. “We believed a tyre had blown when we awoke at 3.35 a.m. Then we believed someone was setting off fireworks,” said Jamuna Prasad, a labourer from Chattarpur, MP, who has been living in a leased one-room apartment in the region for the past six years with his wife and two children.

“However, we immediately realised it was shooting and that militants were present.” We shut the door from the inside. Around 4.30 a.m., the Armymen came and requested us to shift to a safer area, so we opened the door,” Prasad recalled.

Aside from the assaults in 2003 and 2018, the Jammu region has had at least five other “fidayeen” incidents in the last 20 years:

Three terrorists attacked an Army barracks in Nagrota, around 3 kilometres from the 16 Corps headquarters, in 2016. There were two officers and five soldiers slain. Terrorists also broke into two buildings that were occupied by Army officers and their families, creating a hostage situation. Before shooting the insurgents, army personnel evacuated 12 soldiers, two women, and two children.

On January 2, 2004, two terrorists assaulted the Jammu train station, killing four soldiers.

Ten persons were killed when three terrorists attacked the Ragunath and Panjbakhtar temples in ancient Jammu in 2002. Police shot and killed all of the attackers.

Three terrorists stormed the Kaluchak cantonment in Jammu in 2002, murdering 36 people, including security officers, their families, and civilians, before being shot by troops.

In an attack on Ragunath temple in 2002, two terrorists killed three security people before being gunned down.