Kashmir: A State Of No Peace

Thursday, February 14. Ayesha Begam, 43, was on the terrace of her house when she heard a loud explosion that shook the whole building. Nothing like anything she had heard before. As she rushed out of her house with her two children, she heard 바카라�two or three bullet shots바카라�. That was more familiar바카라�an encounter, she thought. Perhaps bigger than usual. 바카라�We live in south Kashmir and also on the highway바카라�we are used to it,바카라� she says. Lethpora, just 25 km or so south of Srinagar, is bang on the highway going through restive south Kashmir all the way to Qazigund, the last town before the Banihal tunnel that connects the Valley to Jammu across the Pir Panjal mountains.

Thursday바카라�s car bombing, which killed 40 CRPF personnel, was indeed out of the ordinary바카라�the deadliest militant attack ever in Kashmir. The suicide bombing carried out by 19-year-­old Adil Ahmad Dar, a Kashmiri militant affiliated to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, has also come at a time when India is headed for general elections. With PM Narendra Modi promising a 바카라�jaw-breaking바카라� response to Pakistan, Kashmir has fed right into the mainstream political discourse.

At Gandibagh village of Pulwama, however, Adil바카라�s father, Ghulam Hassan Dar, says, 바카라�He had never seemed inc­lined to join militancy.바카라� Adil, a teenager doing odd jobs, until some unp­leasant encounters with the forces 바카라�turned바카라� him onto the path families dread, had left home this March, and had only once contacted the family since, adds the berea­ved father. He recalls Adil바카라�s love for cricket and that he was a Dhoni fan.

The spectre of India and Pakistan going to war over Kashmir has long been a staple of foreign policy scenario-­makers. Kashmir has been thr­ough many phases in the two decades since the two belligerent neighbours went nuclear. How does it now react to the prospect of an Indo-Pak war?

People here are stoically numb바카라�바카라�let there be a war,바카라� is the commonest res­ponse. 바카라�Not a day passes without gunfights and encounters and funerals here. Let there be a war and settle it once for all,바카라� says a youngster at Teng­mohalla locality of Lethpora. Others say they have seen so many funerals all ­these years that the fear of death has gone. 바카라�I wish there is war now,바카라� says another youngster, ­perhaps not seeing any difference ­between peace and war.

The Highway

At Lethpora, a youngster points to the camp housing the CRPF바카라�s 185 Batt­alion at the foothills of a mountain loc­ally called Wastuwan, just a mile from the highway where the CRPF convoy was attacked. The last edition of Jaish바카라�s works was seen there, early in the morning on January 1, 2018, when a 16-year-old Jaish militant called Fardeen Khanday, the son of a police head constable from Tral, ent­ered the camp and carried out an att­ack in which five CRPF personnel were killed. Khanday had joined the Jaish in October 2017. In a pre-recor­ded video, Fardeen had claimed ­mil­itancy is not the result of unemployment, but 바카라�a reply to Kashmir바카라�s ill­egal control by India바카라�. He also asked Kashmiri youth to join the 바카라�fight aga­inst India바카라�. Besides Afzal Guru, whose hanging turned him into a martyr in Kashmiri eyes, Fardeen hailed Jaish supremo Maulana Masood Azhar.

Adil was only born in 1999, the year India released Masood Azhar after the IC-814 hijacking. Last Thursday, he joined a script written in blood. Clas­s­ified as a category-C militant, he ram­med his Echo vehicle, filled with what police sources say was ammonium nit­rate, into the ill-fated CRPF bus. He is said to have entered the highway at Awantipora from a left bylane to join the CRPF convoy of 78 vehicles that was transporting 2,547 paramilitary jawans. The convoy had left Jammu around 3 am. At Lethpora, the militant overtook the fifth bus in the convoy, and rammed his vehicle into it, blowing it into pieces and damaging the sixth bus coming up behind it.

The remarkable fact about the incident, at first glance, is that it happened at all바카라�the highway being dotted with security forces. The CRPF바카라�s 10th battalion is just 100 metres ahead of the point on the highway where the incident took place. The army바카라�s 50 Rashtriya Rifles camp too is just 400 metres ahead. But in recent years, this highway has seen militant attacks despite the heavy dep­loyment. In June 2016, LeT militants attacked a CRPF convoy comprising six vehicles at Frisal village at cong­ested Pampore, killing eight CRPF per­sonnel. In July 2017, militants ope­ned fire on a bus carrying Amarnath pilgrims, killing seven yatris, at Bot­engo in Anantnag. Both spots were on the old highway바카라�the new one bypasses them.

The police say there were non-specific inputs about an attack involving an IED of 10-20 kg바카라�nothing of 바카라�this magnitude바카라�, and at any rate not a high-impact suicide sortie involving a bomb-laden car. Even if the mode of attack was unusual, the highway is an easy target because of huge traffic movement, according to the police. 바카라�Another such incident could be a course-changer for Kashmir,바카라� says a senior police official.

Four days after the attack, the CRPF and the army were not allowing civilian vehicles to ply on the highway when sec­urity convoys were on the move. 바카라�Nothing has changed except we have been given long lathis to keep private vehicles away,바카라� says a CRPF jawan manning the Nowgam byp­ass. With even army personnel seen carrying long lathis to make private vehicles fall in line, the Srinagar-Qazigund and Srinagar-Baramulla highways are likely to witness huge jams and possible public protests. On Saturday, people complained they were thrashed by army personnel at Narbal crossing.

The SOP

There was obviously a gap in the SOP that allowed Adil Dar to slip through. The three-tier security SOP starts with early morning road opening parties (ROPs) to check for IEDs. The ROPs are also in charge of not allowing anyone come near the convoys during the day. The second tier is corridor protection, where the army goes 15 yards ­either side of the highway to check any militant movement. The third is deep deployment, where forces are placed in villages along the highway.

According to former J&K DGP K. Rajendra Kumar, till the early 2000s, civilian traffic was stopped for conv­oys바카라�and night traffic not allowed either. Post-2002, these restrictions were lifted as the situation started imp­roving, to the point when militants in Kashmir numbered in single digits. 바카라�If we start restricting private vehicle movement, people would be put to a lot of inconvenience,바카라� he says, adding that even the strictest SOP cannot guarantee total safety. Former CM Omar Abdullah says special chartered trains should be used from Banihal to Baramulla for movement of forces. 바카라�They can move non-stop at high speed and will be much safer,바카라� he says, adding that would free up the highway for civilian traffic.

The 바카라�Afzal Guru Squad바카라�

As the attack was timed close to Feb­ru­ary 9, the day Afzal Guru was hanged in 2013, the police suspect the inv­olve­m­ent of Afzal Guru Squad, formed by Jaish in January 2014바카라�specifically, JeM commander Kamraan, an IED exp­ert, who was gunned down on Monday in Pinglana. Jaish has had a chequered existence in Kashmir: its most dramatic strike ­bef­ore this was the Octo­ber 2001 car bomb attack on the asse­mbly complex in Srinagar that killed 38 people. Partly eclipsed after the 2003 killing of its chief operational commander Gazi Baba바카라�thought to be behind the Parliament attack바카라�it has resurfaced with a bang. Gazi was earlier with the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, created in the 바카라�90s for carrying out 바카라�spe­ctacular attacks바카라�, and IC-814 ranks high among those. IC-814 and the Parl­iament attack finding mention in Adil바카라�s last ­message rounds off a long story.

With New Delhi following an iron-fist policy, militant deaths have been unusual high in the recent past. In 2018, over 256 militants (150 of them Kas­hmiri) were killed, the highest in two decades. In 2017, 85 Jaish militants were killed, including Talha Rashid, a nephew of Masood Azhar. In 2018, at least 49 Jaish men fell, including Usman Haider, another nephew of Masood Azhar. Ind­eed, the army had described 2018 as a 바카라�remarkable바카라� year. Omar Abdullah was the first to question the boast, pointing out a great year would be one in which nobody joined militancy, and no Kash­miri or armed personnel was killed in gunfights. Many experts agree.

For, if 150 Kashmiri militants were killed last year, 190 also joined militancy and 300 are still active. 바카라�They aren바카라�t often well-trained, some don바카라�t even know how to carry a weapon and get killed within days of joining. The­re바카라�s no need to show bravado,바카라� says a senior officer, pleading anonymity.

Analysts here blame the Centre바카라�s policies for pushing Kashmiris to ­extreme positions. One widespread belief is that the Centre, in the past five years, has used Kashmir in a way that would help the BJP elsewhere. That, in fact, helped 바카라�the merger of moderate and hardline separatists,바카라� says an analyst. The party also crea­ted deep paranoia by moving for the revocation of Article 370 and Art­icle 35A바카라�the past two years have seen a complete strike in the Valley for every hearing of the Art­icle 35A case in the Supreme Court. The polarisation was so complete that even those who 바카라�had fired and taken bul­lets for India바카라� testified to feeling threatened. 바카라�You can blame Pakistan for everything but no country on earth can manufacture mass revolt,바카라� says the analyst.

By Naseer Ganai in Lethpora (Pulwama)