Pakistan is lurking in J and K

By Radhavinod Raju

The circumstances that led to the tragic events in Jammu & Kashmir in the late Eighties and early Nineties is still fresh in minds. Pakistani journalists and academics have brought out how General Zia ul-Haq, the military ruler, had planned to use the jihad in Afghanistan to start a jihad in J&K, and was in touch with the Jamaat-e-Islami and the ISI to work out details for executing the plan. We have also seen how, the alleged malpractices in the 1987 State Assembly elections pushed sections of the youth to go into Pakistan for arms training and thus playing into Zia’s hands. The armed insurgency initially led by the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was soon followed by killing of judges, police officers, members of their families, and the Pandits, ending in a huge exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley.

The local police were active throughout this period, though not trained or armed to fight this insurgency backed by a hostile neighbour through funding and arms training. The JKLF militants who were released in December 1989, in exchange for Rubaiya Sayeed, daughter of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, had all been arrested earlier by the J&K police. The lack of strong leadership led to the demoralisation in the police, which necessitated the use of the paramilitary forces and the army, as insurgency gradually degenerated into violent terror. As the local youth became indifferent to Pakistan’s plans, the latter injected hardened jihadists of the Afghan war into Kashmir. A substantial percentage of the terrorists killed during this period were foreigners. This writer was the deputy inspector general in Anantnag, in charge of the south Kashmir range, during a particularly difficult period. The district superintendent of police was attacked with sophisticated weapons as he was coming out of his office, and there were attacks and ambushes on security forces almost every day.

It was in these circumstances that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was first applied in July 1990, in the Valley’s six districts and in areas falling within a 20 kilometre distance of the Line of Control in the border districts of Rajouri and Poonch in the Jammu province to curb infiltration. This act empowered the armed forces, which in normal circumstances do not have police powers of arrest, search and seizure, and use of force to deal with insurgents and terrorists and their armed hide-outs. The allegation of abuse of human rights by the security forces, some genuine while others were baseless, started gaining currency during this violent period.

Except the border areas of Rajouri and Poonch, the Jammu province was not yet brought under the provisions of the Disturbed Areas’ Act, though there were attacks on security forces and innocent civilians throughout the province. Following the infiltration into Kargil in early 1999, when army units were taken out of the counter-insurgency grid, Pakistan infiltrated a large number of terrorists, mostly foreign jihadists, into J&K. This writer was the IG (Jammu zone) between July 1999 and November 2001, when there were maximum casualties among both the terrorists and the security forces personnel. The J&K police, which had by then come into the mainstream of the counter-insurgency grid, alone, lost over hundred men and officers each in 1999-2000 and 2000-2001. In 2001, there were a number of fidayeen attacks in Jammu district itself, one of them on the Jammu railway station in July 2001, following which the Disturbed Areas’ Act was brought into force in the remaining districts of the province.

While the Act empowered the armed forces to confidently take on the terrorists, there were also allegations of high-handedness against both the army and the police forces, including the special operations group of the J&K police which was pointedly targeting terrorists and terrorist leaders. From 2003-’04 onwards, militancy gradually fell. It was a comparatively better period, with ceasefire on the border, fall in infiltration and terrorist attacks. Track II was proceeding apace. All this ended with Musharraf’s ouster, and soon Mumbai 26/11 happened.

In 2008 there was the Amarnath land transfer agitation which took severe communal undertones, and seriously affected life of the people. Led by the separatists, it appeared the enemy was changing tactics, from terrorism to civil disturbance. The incidents of stone pelting in 2010 began after the alleged killing of three innocent Kashmiris by the army in the Machil sector, calling them terrorists. Over a hundred youth perished in police and security forces’ firing in protests which was another sad development. That is how the demand for withdrawal of the AFSPA has gained momentum. The security forces and the police were still in the counter-insurgency mode, rather than in the civil-disturbance mode where more men are armed with lathies and tear-smoke instead of guns. While there should have been better anticipation and re-orientation of the civil forces, in view of the terrorist background of the times, there would also be the fear that armed terrorists can fire on them from the crowds.

The situation today is much better, thanks to the sacrifices of the security forces and the courage of the people. They came out in large numbers and voted in the 2008 and 2011 elections, despite militant threats and the call of the separatist leaders. The people are eager to lead a normal life. The state government, led by a young chief minister, cannot ignore the sentiments of his people. Some districts of Jammu and in the Valley are normal if one goes by the rush of tourists, and the number of conferences held. Terrorist incidents are at an all-time low. In these circumstances, who stands to gain by the recent incidents of grenade throwing in the Valley? The separatists backed by the Pakistanis to show that the situation is far from normal in the state, and those who stand to gain materially, and there are many on our side, by the continuation of the Disturbed Areas’ Act. The answer is to thoroughly investigate each of these incidents, and bring the culprits to book. Kashmir has an excellent crop of investigators, and police leaders, who should take the initiative, and help the government.

But we still cannot say that the problem has ended, for the terrorist infrastructure is still intact in Pakistan.

Radhavinod Raju is a former director general of the National Investigation Agency. E-mail: radhavinodraju@gmail.com

New Indian Express

01st November 2011