The three militants gunned down by the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in Samba district had infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir to carry out a chain of terror attacks by blowing up running trains and tracks with IEDs and hard to detect liquid explosives, a top force official said on Wednesday.
Top officials said the trio was carrying five bottles of liquid explosive trinitroglycerin.
"Militants had infiltrated to carry out big incidents. Their design was to blow up rail tracks and trains here as we have recovered chained IEDs and liquid explosives", additional director general (ADG) BSF and special DG (Western Command) Arun Kumar told PTI.
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They were out to carry out a chain of big impact terror incidents including blowing up of "running trains" and causing fire in trains as chain IEDs and liquid explosive are meant to blow up tracks and cause fire, he said.
"Had our troops not successfully contained and eliminated these heavily armed terrorists with huge stores of explosive material, they could have caused massive damage in the mainland", Kumar said.
"It was only because of BSF's multi-tier security cover that this calamity was averted," the force said.
Apart from arms, ammunition and explosive stores, BSF recovered 10 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) including five liquid type IEDs and three IED waist belts, five chain IEDs from three slain militants along the International Border in Chambiliyal belt of Ramgarh sector in Samba district.