‘A nefarious design to destroy Valley schools’

SRINAGAR: As an encounter raged between security men and militants holed up inside Delhi Public School here, Jammu and Kashmir’s top cop on Sunday said the enemy has nefarious designs to destroy school buildings in the Valley so that children abandon their studies.

Director General of state Police SP Vaid said his men want to ensure minimum collateral damage. “The staff and whoever was inside the building was evacuated on Saturday. Cordon was maintained and we will have room intervention done and get the terrorists eliminated with minimum collateral damage.

“We want to ensure that the (school) building is safe, because the enemy has a nefarious design that the school buildings are destroyed and children have nothing to study and ultimately abandon their studies, which we will ensure that no such thing happens,” he told reporters here.

He was speaking to the media on the sidelines of a wreath-laying ceremony of a CRPF officer killed in the attack by militants on a road opening party of the force on Saturday.

The militants then took refuge inside the school premises.

The DGP said the operation to flush out the militants was getting prolonged because of the size of the building.

“There are 36 rooms, the building is huge. So, it has to be searched floor by floor, room by room,” he said.

The school has seven buildings. Vaid said there are reports of the presence of two militants inside the building.

“The exact number will be known after the search of the building is over, but as per the information, there are two probably,” he said.

Asked whether the security forces were using drone cameras and other hi-tech gadgets to help flush out the militants, the top cop said, “We will use whatever equipment we have.”