Monday, February 21 2005 13:43 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jammu: An Army helicopter today (Feb 21, 2005) dropped food packets for about 300 security personnel who had taken shelter in Jawahar tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir following unprecedented snowfall during the last few days, a Defence spokesman said.

Several packets were dropped on south side of the tunnel this morning for the security personnel, mostly belonging to Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), who had taken shelter in two tubes of the tunnel following snowfall in the area, Defence spokesman of northern command, Col R K Sen said in Jammu.

He said that connection has also been established by radio with the security personnel and all of them were fine.

The Army was helping Border Road Organisation (BRO) and civil authorities in clearing the snow on Jammu-Srinagar national highway, he said, adding one-way road upto Patnitop from Jammu side has already been cleared of snow and the road was expected to be opened upto Ramban by this evening.

Similarly, snow clearance work was going on from Qazigund to Jawahar tunnel from Kashmir side, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a special aircraft carrying essential food items from Jammu to Srinagar returned, as it could not cross the Peerpanjal range due to bad weather, official sources said in Jammu.