Srinagar: Day after Pampore encounter ended, security forces still combing EDI building

A day after the 48-hour encounter ended, security forces were still combing the Entrepreneurship Development Institute complex on Tuesday for any explosives even as its employees returned to an emotional reunion with a vow to resume normal work in three days in the badly-damaged building on the outskirts of Srinagar.

The huge government complex in Pampore, where the security forces killed three holed-up terrorists while losing five of their personnel, was being sanitised as searches were conducted by the security personnel for any explosives. Three Army commandos, including two Captain rank officers, and two CRPF personnel laid down their lives while fighting the terrorists inside the EDI complex, 16 kms from here, on Srinagar-Jammu national highway.

Meanwhile, most of the staff including women reported to their duties today and attended a meeting chaired by Director M I Parray at the nearby hostel building which was unaffected during the gunfight, EDI sources said.

The employees recounted the moments when the terrorists barged into the building on Saturday afternoon and the subsequent rescue operation in which 120 of them were evacuated safely. The employees greeted each other for surviving in the incident while expressing grief over the death of 50-year-old gardener Abdul Gani Mir.

The sources said the meeting, after discussing the ways and means, decided to resume the normal operations within next three days in a portion of the hostel building. The employees decided to contribute a day's salary to the bereaved family since the deceased was not a permanent employee of the institute, the sources said.

The EDI authorities have already informed the bereaved family that one of his daughters would be adjusted against a position suitable to her qualification as the deceased was lone bread-earner of two families comprising 11 members. Mir was caretaker for two families including five girls and two boys. He was living with his in-laws after the death of his brother-in-law who had left behind four children and aged parents.

The officials found safe the entire record, which has been digitized in the routine course, of the entrepreneurs who have been working with the EDI under various schemes, the sources said. They said it was decided that the ongoing training of 160 potential entrepreneurs would also be completed in the hostel building.

The candidates, most of whom also had a narrow escape during the incident, would be informed about the resumption of their training by the field staff shortly.