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Surankote (J&K): From secure fortified bases 35 kms deep inside Indian territory in thick jungles near Surankote, militants, mostly foreign mercenaries, for over three years used satellite phones to make hundreds of calls to apparent modular cells all over the country raising concerns of the intelligence agencies.

"The calls were made to numbers in Chennai, North East, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Patna, Aligarh, as well as to Srinagar and Jammu," senior Army commanders conducting the 'Sarp Vinash' operations in jungles in the Pir Panjal range above Surankote told visiting reporters.

Intense combing operations are on and so far Army, using helicopters and missiles, have busted 93 militant hideouts killing 63 of an estimated 350 militants who were holed-up in these hideouts since 2000.

The sophisticated satellite phones seized from the main militant command centre, when Army forces took the militants by surprise in the first major attack of the operations in early April this year at Hill Kaka also had details of the militants having made frequent calls to Sialkot, Muzzafarbad, Kotli, Islamabad, Abbotabad and other places in Pakistan, Army commanders said.

"We have handed over the twin sets of satellite phones to intelligence agencies, who are now going through the data to conduct raids," Army officials said.

Asked why the authorities had not used tapping devices to trace the use of satellite phones, major general Hardev Lidder, the officer commanding the ongoing operations, said operational units of the Army had no such equipment and it normally was the task of civilian intelligence agencies.

It is well known that agencies like the Intelligence Bureau and Army Intelligence often intercept and record militant communication and it appears a big question mark how communications of militants from Hill Kaka went unnoticed.

Such interceptions would have given the intelligence agencies the information about the militant hideouts, but it was only when one of the holed-out militants surrendered that the intelligence agencies came to know of elaborate fortifications set up in deep jungles South of the Pir Panjal range, in almost a true copy of Kargil intrusions.

Army commanders said subsequent to the information given by the surrendered militant, helicopter reconnaissance patrol had noticed a bunker on snow crest at the height of 3,689 metres, which was impregnable and later as the operation unfolded it was only an air-to-ground missile fired from a helicopter that blew up the bunker almost on top of the mountain range.

Army commanders said the use of new locating devices like the sensors, Israeli portable reconnaissance radars, hand held thermals and night visions had proved of great help in destroying militant hideout and causing disarray among them.

Though the operational commanders would not divulge the number and units involved, sources said a number of special forces formation including the Nine Para Commando, whose home turf is Poonch and Rajouri sector had been extensively used with devastating effect on militants.

PTI