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J&K:
Shifting Strategy of Subversion
K
P S Gill
There
are dramatic signs of shifting strategies in the covert war in
Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), as Pakistan reorients its position to
take advantage of the rising sentiment in favour of peace, even as
it seeks to sustain terrorism on Indian soil. The Muttahida (United)
Jehad Council (MJC), which was shifted from Islamabad to
Muzzafarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in order to assert
the pretence of its 'autonomy', has been reorganized; component
terrorist groups have been instructed by the Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI) to drop the expressions jehad, lashkar,
jaish or mujahiddeen in their names in order to
project a 'secular political' rather than Islamist image. As a
result, three new 'alliances' have emerged: the Kashmir Resistance
Forum (KRF); the Kashmir Freedom Forum (KFF); and the
Hizb-ul-Mujahideeen (HM). The Hizb alone has been permitted to
retain the 'mujahiddeen' in its name, since it is projected as an
'indigenous' Kashmiri group, as against the others, which are
dominated by Pakistani and other foreign mercenaries.
Simultaneously, cries of 'human rights violations' by the Indian
security forces, and orchestrated protests against these, are
sweeping across Kashmir, even as terrorist groups escalate violence.
The most significant of recent terrorist operations was, of course,
the grenade attack on Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's
political rally at Beerwah in Budgam district on February 27, 2004.
Though a young woman in the crowd tragically lost her life, the
Chief Minister was not hurt, and returned to the podium after a few
minutes to continue with his address, even as the crowd reassembled
in an unprecedented demonstration of solidarity in an area that, not
long ago, was regarded as a jehadi 'heartland'.
Significantly, at least 12 political activists, mainly from Sayeed's
People's Democratic Party (PDP), have already been killed since
January 2004, in anticipation of Parliamentary elections, which are
scheduled for April-May 2004.
Nevertheless, the pressure on terrorist formations in the State is
enormous, and rising. Overt support from Pakistan - including
artillery cover that was routinely provided to infiltrating groups -
has diminished, as the Pervez Musharraf regime comes under mounting
international - particularly US - pressure for a wide range of
transgressions, including its support to international terrorism and
Pakistan's role in the proliferation of nuclear technologies to
rogue states, including Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
Counter-terrorist operations by Indian security forces have also
been enormously successful over the past months, and, apart from a
continuous stream of arrests and killings of terrorist cadres, most
major formations operating in J&K have lost frontline leaders
over the past months. Since May last year, after Prime Minister
Vajpayee's 'offer of friendship' to Pakistan in April 2003, at least
27 frontline terrorist leaders in J&K have been killed,
including, in the current year itself, Abdul Majid Wani, 'divisional
commander' of the HM (February 24, 2004); Ishfaq Ahmad Rehmani,
'district commander' of the Al Badr Mujahideeen (February 21, 2004);
Ehsaan Elahi, 'district commander' of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT,
February 20, 2004); Rafeeq Ahmed Dar 'chief commander operations',
Al Umar Mujahideeen (February 6, 2004); Ghulam Rasool Dar, 'chief
commander operations', HM (January 16, 2004); Abbas Malik, 'district
commander', Doda, HM (January 15, 2004); and Javed Ahmad,
'operational commander', LeT (January 13, 2004). The steady losses
inflicted on the terrorist leadership have enormously affected
operational capacities, and also brought pressure on 'overground'
organisations, including factions of the All Parties Hurriyat
Conference (APHC) as well as a number of 'human rights' fronts to
orchestrate systematic political campaigns, agitations, and judicial
actions to blunt security force operations.
This has been a consistent strategy of terrorist groups across India
- and not only in J&K - particularly in periods of terrorist
reverses and of 'political negotiations' for the 'settlement' of
conflicts. The modus operandi is particularly visible in what
are being referred to as the 'Bandipore atrocities' involving two
separate incidents in which six civilians were killed. The first of
these, the killing of Mohammad Shafi Chechi of the Chithibanday
village near Bandipore, was projected as a 'fake encounter' of an
'innocent civilian'. However, subsequent investigations not only
established the fact that an exchange of fire did take place between
Chechi and an Army patrol on February 5, but also that the body had
subsequently been brought to his village, where his family and other
residents failed to identify him. The body was subsequently exhumed
on the family's request, and allegations were made that he had been
killed in a 'fake encounter'. Investigators concluded that the
family may have changed its story in order to secure some sort of
compensation from the Government, which would only be forthcoming if
Chechi were not involved in terrorist activities.
The second 'Bandipore incident' involved the killing of five
civilian porters, again residents of Chithibanday, working with the
Army, who villagers and human rights groups claimed had been killed
in 'cold blood' and passed off as 'terrorists' by the Army.
Subsequent investigations demonstrated that these accounts were 'not
credible' and that the unarmed porters were, in fact, cut down in
crossfire in which three Army personnel and six terrorists were also
killed. There has, however, been widespread criticism of the use of
civilian porters for Army duties in areas of conflict, and the Army
has now taken steps to discourage the practice, though operational
imperatives in the difficult J&K terrain make civilian guides
and porters difficult to dispense with entirely.
The truth of the 'Bandipore atrocities' did not, however, deter
'human rights' and other political formations in the State,
including both factions of the Hurriyat, from making these supposed
'excesses' the centre of a campaign of violent protests, which
resulted in a succession of incidents, including the 'beating up' of
civilians by the Army and the police, and these eventually
culminated in police firing on a violent crowd of over 3,000 persons
in Bandipore on February 27, 2004, in which one protestor was
killed, setting in motion another cycle of protests against this
'atrocity'.
Another recent incident of the abuse of the human rights platform
illustrates the pattern: in December 2003, two sisters complained
that they had been shot by soldiers when they resisted attempts to
arrest their brother. Subsequent investigations established that the
girls had, in fact, been shot by a LeT terrorist, Inayatullah Khan,
and had been told to lie about the incident or face reprisals. These
incidents are not unique, and allegations of 'human rights
violations' are routinely put out after virtually every arrest or
encounter between the state's security forces and terrorist groups.
These are familiar stories. In the end 1980s and early 1990s,
battered by sustained counter-terrorism operations, and with
increasing political interference as a result of a number of
terrorist sympathisers and former terrorists finding a place in the
country's democratic processes due to the Centre's efforts to find a
'political solution' to the Khalistani terrorist movement in the
Punjab, precisely the same pattern had been massively employed. The
"sustained agitational and propaganda campaign… backed by
narrowly targeted terrorist violence" in Punjab has been
recorded elsewhere:
Calls
for bandhs became a daily occurrence; jathas (groups)
were sent to court arrest and gherao (organise
sit-ins at) police stations after every police action or
arrest of a terrorist… Each of these events became an
occasion for the most inflammatory rhetoric, as political
and religious leaders addressed the people in the most
immoderate terms possible, constructing a false mythology
of sacrifice and martyrdom around the death of every
common criminal…This incendiary mix of politics,
religion and intimidation culminated in a campaign of
disruption that pinned down ever-increasing numbers of
security personnel, progressively reducing the force
available for operational duties… This strategy of
quasi-political mobilisation was backed up by a massive
and well-coordinated campaign by another group of
terrorist front organisations masquerading as human rights
activists… Every arrest victimised the innocent. Every
action by the security forces was an 'excess', an
atrocity. The countryside was rife with stories of these
alleged 'police atrocities'; but in every case they were
'known' to have happened in 'a village nearby', to have
been witnessed by a person invariably other than the
narrator; they transpired in an indeterminate area of the
mind that could not be identified on any map of Punjab,
but which existed, at once, everywhere and nowhere.
[Endgame in Punjab: 1988-1993]
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This,
precisely, is what is again being witnessed in J&K, and any
assessment of current trends in the State, including the shifting
pronouncement of the Hurriyat factions, must factor in the reality
that these protests and agitations are part of a coordinated
campaign to obstruct security forces from carrying out legitimate
counter-terrorism operations, and to further the terrorist agenda by
means that exploit the institutions and freedoms of democracy. Any
aberrations and highhandedness by security forces, must not, of
course, go unpunished. However, while allegations of human rights
abuses must be taken seriously and investigated at the highest
level, there is urgent need to understand, equally, the dynamic in
which 'human rights' claims become an integral element of the
negotiating strategy of the front organisations of terrorist groups
and sympathetic political formations, as well as of the state
sponsors of such terrorist groups and front organisations.
Author
is Publisher, SAIR; and President, Institute for Conflict
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