Aug 27: An 18-hour battle to save a family of hostages, including at least four children aged between three and nine, from militants posing as policemen appeared to have ended close to midnight with the death of a third and last rebel holding out in the house in Jammu.

There was no official word on the fate of the hostages an hour after the encounter ended. Sources said one hostage was injured, adding that the house was being checked for booby-traps.

Four persons, including an army junior commissioned officer and a jawan on leave who was passing by, were killed in the run-up to the hostage crisis that began in the morning. The militants had apparently sneaked into Indian territory less than 24 hours ago, catching the government off guard in the middle of an unrest in Jammu over land for Amarnath that has triggered an uprising in Kashmir.

The three militants took shelter in the house and held a mother, her four children, a tenant and his wife captive after an audacious ride to the town in a hijacked three-wheeler, staving off a battery of forces not far from the centre of Jammu town.

The army confirmed tonight that two of the militants had been killed, the first around 11.30am and the second at 7.30 in the evening. The third was said to have been shot dead a little before midnight.

Sources claimed that the possibility of granting safe passage to one or more militants to save the hostages was also on the table at one point of time.

An army source in Jammu said he believed at least one militant had asked for “safe passage”, though this could not be officially confirmed.

Jammu police chief K. Rajendra said local maulvis had been brought in and they had appealed for the release of the hostages. The rescue was proving difficult because there was only one entrance on the ground floor of the one-storey building.

The three militants were believed to be from the batch that had sneaked in yesterday through the international border in Akhnoor’s Kanachak, 17km from Jammu. “This can’t be confirmed but three men were seen (crossing over to the Indian side) in the border firing yesterday,” a home ministry official said in Delhi.

A relative of Naseeb Singh mourns his death at Chinore. (Reuters)

This morning, the militants, said to be in police fatigues, asked the three-wheeler driver at Mishriwala, 7km from Jammu, to drop them at a location in the town, the police said.

They were stopped at an army post in Domana, on alert after Tuesday’s infiltration. The militants opened fire and lobbed grenades, killing junior commissioned officer V.V.K. Paarkashan, and Vijay Kumar, an on-leave soldier who happened to be passing by on a bike.

The trio then drove to Chinore, where they opened fire before storming businessman Biloo Ram’s house. The auto driver and a retired subedar, Naseeb Singh, who was walking down the road at the time, were killed.

Biloo’s wife Sunita, 35 and their four children — Sheetal 9, Kajal 4, Vipan 3 and Asheel, 7 — were inside the house, Jammu police chief Rajendra said. Ashok Kumar, 27, a tenant, and his wife were also trapped inside. The businessman was not in the house when it was stormed but said he had talked to Ashok on his mobile.

Propaganda coup

One of the militants holed up in the house, calling himself Talal Zarar, claimed to TV channels during the day that none of the militants was killed. Zarar, possibly speaking on tenant Ashok’s mobile, said he had come to Jammu from Kashmir to avenge the killings in the Valley by security forces. He fired in the air to convince the channels he was a militant, recording a propaganda coup of sorts. He promised not to harm the children and women.