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NSG commandos fly off to Kupwara

Josy Joseph in New Delhi

A crack team of the National Security Guards has left New Delhi for Kupwara in Jammu and Kashmir where four personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force and Border Security Force as well as two Intelligence Bureau officers have been taken hostage by extremists.

Soldiers of the 21 Rashtriya Rifles have already surrounded the BSF-CISF combined camp on the outskirts of Handwara town in Kupwara district.

Highly placed sources in the NSG said a special flight carrying the specially trained commandos is on its way to Kupwara.

The commandos will land in Srinagar, where helicopters have been kept ready to fly them to Handwara, sources in Kupwara said.

The NSG sources indicated that the team of commandos is the same that successfully stormed a BSF camp at Bandipore on 14 July, where too terrorists had taken hostages.

According to the sources in Kupwara, at least three BSF personnel sustained minor injuries this morning after the local BSF unit tried to resolve the hostage drama. They have been admitted to the 428 Field Ambulance in Kupwara.

The drama began early this morning, when terrorists walked into the BSF-CISF camp on the outskirts of Handwara, on the Baramullah-Kupwara road, and took two intelligence officers and four CISF/BSF personnel hostage. The camp is located in a house on the outskirts of Handwara.

Local BSF and CISF units launched an operation to free them, but it ended quickly with three of the security personnel getting injured.

Within hours soldiers of the 21Rashtriya Rifles surrounded the building and called on the extremists to surrender. But till 1700 IST, there was no progress.

Sources in Kupwara told rediff.com on telephone that they are "waiting for commandos from Delhi".

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