Jammu and Kashmir Governor Lt General (retd) S K Sinha on Thursday complimented the Border Security Force for eliminating two Lashkar terrorists holed up in Hotel Greenway in Srinagar in a 'people friendly operation' on Thursday.

Attack on Srinagar BSNL office: Encounter ends, 5 dead

He said that being a soldier himself, he felt proud of the operation carried out by BSF commandos.

Two militants, who entered a BSNL office in Srinagar on Wednesday, had managed to enter a hotel in the same premises overnight. In an early morning operation, the BSF rescued 20 people trapped in the building and killed the militants.

Speaking to rediff.com, General Sinha said there is a world of difference between the kind of insurgency in the northeast, particularly in Assam, and in Kashmir. "We are facing a proxy war here and we have to face the challenges from the terrorists and deal with them effectively," he said.

General Sinha was the Assam governor before he was moved to Srinagar.

Inspector General of BSF Vijay Raman said that his men had left nothing to chance.

"By talking to the people trapped inside, we had established there were only two terrorists involved in the operation. I told my men that till mid-night the terrorists would hold an upper hand and later we would have the upper hand. That is the way the entire operation went. By 2330 IST we had entered the ground floor of the hotel and secured it. This virtually ruled out any chance of escaping for the terrorists.

"They could jump out of the windows, but the fire from outside made even this impossible. After the last of the people trapped were rescued around 0400 IST, we decided to increase the fire power. At 0600 IST we moved in and the entire operation was over in minutes," he said.