Jammu and Kashmir police have taken around 50 men for questioning from Ganderbal district in central Kashmir as they investigate a terrorist attack on an infrastructure project near Sonamarg that killed seven construction company workers.
According to police sources, initial investigation suggests that the militants who targeted the workers may have entered the region from Pakistan from Bandipore.
Seven employees, including a local doctor, of APCO Infratech were killed on Sunday when terrorists opened fire on their camp on the Z-Morh tunnel, which connects Kangan town and Sonamarg tourist on the Srinagar-Leh national highway.
Police sources said that although they do not have any concrete leads in their attacks at the moment, they have picked up the suspects in different parts of the region.
“Each police station in the area has rounded up the suspects. They are being interrogated to find any reliable leads that can help them succeed,” said a police source.
Police sources said that more people are likely to be arrested.
Police sources also said that the attackers may have entered Sigodini recently. “Our questions to the survivors reveal that the attackers were not local people. There are many possibilities that they were Pakistani terrorists who sneaked into the Valley recently from the Gurez sector,” said a police source. The high mountains behind the Kangan connect Gurez and Bandipore. “The soldiers seem to have fled to the woods after the attack,” said the source.
According to the survivors, on Sunday evening, two men wearing woolen shawls appeared at the camping site in the Z-Morh tunnel and opened fire in several places. While three of the dead were from Bihar, one each from Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu. A local doctor from central Kashmir’s Budgam was also among the dead.
The police and security forces are yet to issue a statement regarding the attack.