New Delhi: The militants might have got the information about the movement of a large number of CRPF personnel in Pulwama district which led to the high number of casualties, officials suspect.
The deadliest attack on CRPF in recent times in Jammu and Kashmir claiming nearly 44 lives so far took place when over 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway near Awantipora in south Kashmir around 3.15 pm.
Not ruling out violation of Standard Operating Procedures when such a huge movement of central forces is taking place in the troubled state, officials requesting anonymity said a clear picture on loopholes, if any, will be known after a thorough probe.
“Such a large movement of troops must have been known to a lot of people. There is a possibility of this information reaching to terrorists,” a security official suspect.
It is the second deadliest attack faced by the CRPF since 2010 when a team of naxals had ambushed its troops in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh killing 76 personnel of the force.
In the Valley, the force had faced an ambush on June 25, 2016 when Lashkar-e-Taiba militants attacked its convoy in Frestabal area of Pampore on Srinagar-Jammu National Highway killing eight of its personnel.
