MUZAFFARABAD/MURREE, Aug 6: Three persons, whom the officials suspected could be involved in Murree terrorist attack, blew themselves up with grenades in an Azad Jammu and Kashmir village on Tuesday after being intercepted by the locals and the police because of their “suspicious movements,” official sources said.

The three persons, who were stated to be in late twenties or early thirties, were walking on the road near a small village, Khapadar, located along the River Jhelum, some 12kms ahead of Kohala and 50kms south of the AJK capital, at about 2pm, the sources said.

Khapadar faces the town of Phagwari in Murree hills on the other side of the river. A suspension bridge over the river links the two sides with each other. The village has a small police post, where four constables and a head constable are posted.

Alarmed in the wake of Monday’s terrorist attack in their neighbouring area, residents of the village asked the suspects to identify themselves, the sources told Dawn. But, they added, instead of doing so, the suspects ran towards the river and went several feet inside the water where they positioned themselves on a rock.

In the meanwhile, two policemen also arrived at the scene after being informed of the happening by the villagers. The suspects, speaking Urdu, had earlier been asking the villagers to let them go towards Muzaffarabad. But as the police arrived, they got panicky and suddenly took out hand-grenades from their pockets and blew themselves up.

Two of them were swept away by the river while the body of the third was recovered by a local, the sources said.

However, a police officer claimed that the three suspects were first intercepted by two constables near the post who also recovered a hand-grenade from one of them following which they ran towards the river and blew themselves up there with the remaining devices in their possession.

According to DIG, Muzzafarababd police, Tahir Qayyum, the villagers of Khabader saw the three in suspicious condition and surrounded them. The villagers quoted the terrorists as saying that they had hand-grenades with them and that they had already accomplished an operation in Murree Christian School (MCS) and if they were hindered they will kill them also.

The villagers approached a nearby police checkpoint and narrowed their circle around the suspects. On sensing the danger, the three fastened the grenades on their bodies and blew themselves up, the DIG said.

The body of the third suspect was brought to Dhirkot hospital at 9pm and a source at the hospital told this correspondent that the clean-shaven man was wearing a shirt, tracksuit pyjamas and joggers, but his face had been badly mutilated.

Senior police officials were of the view that these men could have connection with the terrorist attack on the Christian school in Murree, but avoided giving any statement without completing the investigations.

Our Islamabad Correspondent adds: Police have taken into custody five persons — one of them a suspected Al Qaeda member — in connection with Monday’s terrorist attack on Murree Christian School which left six persons dead and four others injured, an official source said.

Iftikhar Ahmed, a spokesman for Interior Ministry, when contacted, disclosed that the Rawalpindi police have taken five persons into custody from Pirwadhi in connection with the missionary school attack and they are being questioned.

The spokesman said: “None of the arrested persons are Arab nationals. However, one of them is a suspected Al Qaeda member.” A joint army and police team aided by sniffer dogs and helicopters continued combing the green woods of Murree Hills on Tuesday to track down the terrorists who disappeared after the attack on the school.

The spokesman said they had not asked any foreign agency to help the local law enforcement agencies in the case so far and added that the killing of three “terrorists” in an AJK village has apparently no link with Monday’s terrorist attack in Murree.