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J
& K in the year 2002
An
assessment by Institute
for Conflict Management, New Delhi
Jammu
and Kashmir
remains the most serious internal security challenge for the
country. Global attention is significantly focussed on the State
consequent to the military build-up along the borders by India and
Pakistan. The build up commenced after five terrorists of the Jaish-e-Mohammed
(JeM)
attacked India’s parliament on December 13, 2001 and killed eight
security force personnel and a parliament staff member before they
were killed. Earlier, on October 1, 2001, JeM mercenaries attacked
the J&K State Legislative Assembly complex in Srinagar and
killed ten security force personnel and a parliament staff member
before they were killed.
In
the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United
States, links between Al Qaeda, the Taliban and terrorists active in J&K
are increasingly being recognised by the global community. Outfits
such as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, JeM
and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT)
had direct links with the Taliban and with Al Qaeda. A large number
of members of the Islamist terrorist network may ultimately cross
over to India.
The
onslaught launched by the US and the Northern Alliance in October
2001, has dislodged the Taliban regime and members of the Islamist
terrorist networks previously based in Afghanistan are now on the
run. A number of them have been arrested and detained in Pakistan,
where they fled in the face of the US attacks. These detained
terrorists are being questioned by US and Pakistani security
agencies. A real danger lies in the fact, that the lower rung cadre
of these outfits, very large numbers of whom have simply
‘disappeared’ into the general population, and who, even in the
event of arrests, are not likely to be extradited to the US, may
ultimately cross over into J&K. In the past, Pakistan’s
Inter-Services Intelligence has given jailed criminals the option of
release if they were willing to participate in the terrorist
violence in J&K. It is plausible that, once US interest in the
detainees diminishes, these forces would be channelised towards
India.
Between
September 11 and December 13, India had been trying to convince the
US administration, that the former was also being targeted by the
same terror network which inflicted the September 11 attacks on the US, and this
common threat emanated from the same Islamist extremist sources
supported by common allies, Pakistan, the Taliban militia in
Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. This threat, consequently,
required a common response. While this principle has gained wide
acceptance, a degree of ambivalence persists in the US responses, as
it seeks to ‘manage’ Pakistan in an unlikely role as a
‘frontline state against terrorism’. It is, of course, the case
that, before the September 11 attacks, Western focus had been
shifting, howsoever inadequately, towards the burgeoning danger of
international extremist Islamist terrorism located in the
Pakistan-Afghanistan axis. It is partially this concern that was
reflected in the US State Department's assertion, in mid-2000, that
the locus of terrorism has shifted from West Asia to South Asia.
Following
intense international pressure, Pakistan has been taking nominal
steps against terrorist outfits based in its territory and operating
in J&K. This was more so after the US, on December 26, 2001,
termed the LeT and the JeM as Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO).
In the aftermath of September 11, the US woke up to the fact that
the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA),
an outfit it termed as an FTO in 1997 for its links with bin Laden,
was operating in Pakistan under the name of HuM after the
proscription. The HuM was termed as an FTO in October 2001.
Following this US categorisation, Pakistan proceeded to arrest the
top leadership of the JeM and the LeT even while permitting the
second line of command to operate freely. JeM chief, Maulana Massod
Azhar was first detained for a few hours on December 26, 2001 and
then arrested again on December 29, 2001. The former LeT chief,
Hafiz Mohammed Saeed was arrested on December 30, 2001.
Since
the insurgency in J&K began in 1988, India has been consistently
indicating that the State was a theatre for Pakistan's proxy war. It
was only after the December 13, 2001, terrorist attack on
Parliament, that the government decided that this proxy war required
the threat of a military response and military deployment along the
border with Pakistan was built-up. The consequent face-off between
Indian and Pakistani forces has strengthened Western perceptions of
the Kashmir issue as a potential flash-point for a future nuclear
confrontation between India and Pakistan, and the international
community has been urging India to avoid an armed conflict with
Pakistan and to give President Musharraf more time to curb the
activities of terrorist groups based in his country.
Within
the subcontinent, India’s and Pakistan’s oft-stated positions on
Kashmir were vigorously projected in the context of the September 11
attacks. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, while going public on
his support to the US in its global campaign against bin Laden and
the Taliban, claimed that this course was being adopted to prevent
harm to Pakistan’s "Kashmir cause". In an interview on
October 2, 2001, where he was asked about the changing focus of
terrorism to Kashmir, he stated that this would be the most
contentious issue and "it will not be accepted at all" in
Pakistan.
The
cosmetic changes within Pakistan in the post-9/11 phase have failed
to impress the jehadi groups, and there has been a continuous
succession of attacks in India. In the December 13 attack on
India’s Parliament, four fidayeen (suicide) terrorists of the JeM,
drove an explosives laden car into the Parliament compound and
opened fire. Their entry into the Parliament building was prevented
by SF personnel. Although one of the fidayeen blew himself up, this
failed to cause any major casualties. Eight SF personnel and a
member of the parliament staff were killed along with the fidayeen.
India has stated that the JeM, in collusion with the LeT, had
carried out the attack.
In
its October 1 attack on the Srinagar Legislature complex, a JeM
fidayeen exploded an explosives laden car outside the complex gate.
In the ensuing confusion, three JeM fidayeen entered the complex and
fortified themselves within. They fired indiscriminately until they
were killed by SFs. 38 persons, including the four fidayeen, were
killed in this attack.
Despite
several peace initiatives and international pressure on Pakistan to
abjure terrorism as a foreign policy instrument, terrorist violence
has been on the rise in J&K. As a result, 1067 civilians, 590 SF
personnel and 2850 terrorists were killed in 2001. This was only a
continuation of the escalating trends in year 2000, when peace
initiatives failed to check the levels of violence.
India
and Pakistan’s conflicting positions on the J&K insurgency had
also been emphasised during the summit meeting between Indian Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Musharraf during the
latter’s visit to New Delhi and Agra on July 14-16, 2001. While
Pakistan, in the run-up to the summit, continued to emphasise the
territorial dispute and the façade of ‘an indigenous freedom
movement’, India responded by fixing the focus on cross-border
terrorism. As most analysts had foreseen, the summit failed to
change ground realities. 87 people were killed in J&K during the
three days of the summit itself. Violence in 2001 has been at its
highest level since the commencement of the movement in 1988. The
declining trend in casualties, which began after 1994, reversed in
1998 and has been registering an upward movement ever since.
Interestingly, the number of incidents of terrorist violence peaked
in 1992, and have declined continuously since then, to rise again in
2001 – a trend that points to the increasing lethality and
sophistication of the weaponry available to the terrorists.
Major
incidents of terrorist violence in the year 2001 included the
massacre of 15 civilians at Shrotidhar, Doda, by the LeT on August
2. This was preceded by two massacres in the same district, first on
July 21 at Cherji in which 15 persons were killed and the second in
the nearby Tagoot on the next day in which four Village Defence
Committee (VDC) members were killed. Several other massacres on a
smaller scale too were perpetrated in the year. Meanwhile, attacks
on SF personnel, bases and other high security targets continued. On
August 7, suspected LeT cadres opened fire at Jammu Railway Station
killing nine persons, including two SF personnel. One terrorist was
also killed in the attack. LeT terrorists, on August 23, attacked
the Poonch police Station and killed seven police personnel before
escaping. On October 18, separate unsuccessful assassination
attempts were made on two State ministers in the Baramulla district
by suspected Hizb terrorists. The target of the first attack was
Works Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar; the second attack was on Minister
of State for Rural Development, Ajay Sadhotra. There were no
casualties in either of these attacks. Several prominent
counter-insurgents (CI) were also killed by HM terrorists during the
year. Ghulam Nabi alias Azad Nabi who founded the CI outfit, Muslim
Mujahideen, and was also President of the People's Patriotic Front,
was killed on June 16 at Anantnag. Another leading CI activist,
Mushtaq Pal was killed in Srinagar on July 26. He had been aiding
the SFs in various CI operations ever since his surrender in 1993,
and was instrumental in the elimination of more that 50 terrorists
in the districts of Budgam, Srinagar and Baramulla. Another
prominent CI activist, Mohammed Sikandar Ganai was killed in
Anantnag on August 11.
Counter-insurgency
operations by SF personnel achieved several significant successes in
the second half of 2001. Among the major terrorist leaders killed
were Hizb's deputy chief, Abdul Hamid Tantray, also known as
'Commander Masood' who was killed in an encounter at Paloo, Pulwama,
on July 25. Al Badr chief Hafiz alias Dr Nayeem and the
outfit’s ‘Divisional Commander’ for central Kashmir, Syed
Talha Ahmed alias Aamir were killed in an encounter at Srinagar on
November 21. Meanwhile, a group of 11 terrorists who had killed four
civilians at Chowkian Handan, Rajouri, on August 31, were pursued by
the SFs. While five of the 11 terrorists were killed on August 31 in
an operation launched immediately after the massacre, two others
were killed on September 3, and the remaining three on September 4.
The eleven were members of a new outfit ‘J&K Takrir-e-Jehad’.
A prompt response by SF personnel averted a massacre on August 28 at
Singhpura. Consequent to receipt of information that terrorists had
rounded up 25 civilians from the village and were marching them to a
nearby forests, SF units rushed in and forcing the terrorists to
flee before they could harm the civilians. There were, however,
several instances where SF personnel, guilty of dereliction in duty,
were punished. The Poonch Station House Officer, who reportedly hid
himself when LeT terrorists stormed the station and killed seven
personnel, was dismissed from service. Similarly, an SF officer and
four personnel were arrested on September 3, 2001, after they
surrendered their weapons to a group of terrorists at Dooru,
Anantnag.
Even
as year 2001 began with a government cease-fire in operation (since
November 27, 2000), trends in fatalities indicated that this measure
failed to change the intent and activities of the terrorists. The
‘unilateral cease-fire’, actually a cessation of offensive
operations by security forces in the State, was initially ordered by
the Prime Minister for a month (November 27 to December 26, 2000).
It was subsequently extended thrice until its termination on May 23,
2001. Even though total casualties declined during the cease-fire
period as compared to the preceding six-month period, these were
primarily due to a fall in the terrorist and SF casualties as a
result of declining engagement by the Forces. Civilian casualties
rose considerably during the period.
Note:
The figures for the Cease-fire period is the monthly average for the
period December 2000-May 2001. The figures for the period before the
cease-fire is the monthly average for the period July-November 2000.
The
government continued its cease-fire policy despite the fact that all
terrorist groups operating in the State had rejected the initiative
and declared that they would increase the level of violence. A
government press release on May 11, 2001 gave a comparative picture
of the scene for two parallel periods, the first, between November
28, 2000, and April 26, 2001 and the second, between November 28,
1999, and April 26, 2000.
There
were several instances of major terrorist attacks during the
cease-fire period. After an abortive attempt on January 7, 2001,
terrorists of the Lashkar-e-Toiba’s (LeT) fidayeen squads
successfully stormed the Srinagar Airport on January 16. Four SF
personnel. Two civilians and six members of the Lashkar squad were
killed in this attack. A Lashkar statement claimed that the leader
of the squad had made a successful escape after the attack. Attacks
on SF bases too were frequent and in one such instance, a
four-member squad attacked the Srinagar Police Control Room, killing
eight SF personnel and injuring seven others, before they were
killed. In an ambush by unidentified terrorists at Morha Chatru in
Rajouri district, on March 2, 2001, 15 SF personnel and two
civilians were killed. Besides, two massacres of civilians too were
perpetrated during this period, the first at Mehjoor Nagar in the
capital, Srinagar, on February 3, where six Sikhs were killed and
the second, at Morha Saluhi in Rajouri district, on February 10, in
which 15 Hindus were killed.
In
response, counter terrorism efforts, severely restricted by the
embargo on offensive operations, yielded significant results. SF
sources reported several instances where terrorists, who were
located and asked to surrender, launched attacks instead, leading to
major encounters. Prominent among the terrorists killed in these
encounters were the Lashkar's Salahuddin, suspected by security
forces to be the brain behind the outfit's suicide squads. He was
killed on March 28, 2001, at Pohru in Budgam district. Another
notable success was the elimination of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen's (HM)
Rajouri district chief 'Col. Zaki'; in an encounter at the Nangali
forests of Rajouri. Tracking the perpetrators of the February 10,
2001, Morha Saluhi massacre (see para above), SF personnel located
and engaged them in a series of encounters on February 18-19 at Kot
Chadwal, Rajouri and killed 10 Pakistani mercenaries of the LeT and
Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami (HUJI).
The
counter-terrorism response in the post cease-fire phase was
vigorous, particularly in the second week of July. Of the 280
terrorists killed until August 8, 42 were killed on a single day
(July 15) while 15 and 14 terrorists were killed on July 5 and July
10 respectively. July 15 was particularly significant since SF
forces, based on intelligence information, raided several terrorist
hide-outs in the Hill Kaka forests of Poonch district, where a
meeting of top Lashkar and Jaish terrorists was in progress. From
the debris of six hide-outs destroyed in the operation, bodies of 21
suspected Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries were recovered. On the
next day, Nadeem, suspected to be the chief of the Al-Badr’s
suicide wing, was killed, along with two associates, in an encounter
at Ganderbal. Meanwhile, in quick succession, two top Hizb
‘commanders’ were also killed. The group’s second in command
within the State, Abdul Hamid Tantray alias ‘Commander Masood’
was killed at Paloo in Pulwama district on July 24. Within a week
after this incident, Mustafa Khan, reported to be the chief of the
outfit’s wing entrusted with eliminating SF informers and
counter-insurgency operatives, was killed along with two associates
at Goigam in the Budgam district on July 30.
Levels
of terrorist violence were also aggressively maintained in the
post-cease fire period. Promises by various terrorist groups of
renewed violence in the aftermath of the Indo-Pak summit, were kept
with a series of massacres in which 31 civilians were killed in Doda
district on July 21 and August 2. All the massacred civilians were
non-Muslims. Similarly, the Jammu Railway Station was the scene of
two attacks, a bomb explosion on June 25 which injured 45 persons,
and indiscriminate firing by three Lashkar fidayeen which killed
seven civilians and two SF personnel, even as one fidayeen was
killed in retaliatory firing by the SFs.
Meanwhile,
several peace initiatives were undertaken in 2001 to address the
Kashmir issue. Through an official statement on April 5, 2001, the
government invited all Kashmiri groups to participate in
negotiations to end the crisis. Two days prior to this, Union Home
Minister L.K. Advani announced the nomination of K.C. Pant, Deputy
Chairman of the Planning Commission, as the government's nominee for
the proposed talks.
Initially
displaying confusion, the All Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) failed to issue an official reaction
to the government's invitation for talks. The alliance's top
decision making body, the Executive Committee, on April 15, 2001,
referred the issue to the Working Committee and the larger General
Council that includes the seven members of the Executive Committee
and representatives of all constituent parties. After a session of
the Working Committee on April 21 and that of the General Council on
April 23, the issue was referred again to the Executive Committee
which, on April 28, rejected the government's offer. This stand was
an endorsement of the views expressed by several Hurriyat leaders,
including its Chairman Abdul Ghani Bhat (who were speaking for
themselves) rejecting the invitation for two reasons: First, the
government had failed to permit a proposed APHC delegation visit to
Pakistan to confer with terrorist groups based in that country; and
second, that the invitation was open to all Kashmiri bodies, which
meant that the government was not willing to endorse the
Hurriyat’s self-proclaimed mandate as the 'sole genuine
representative' of the State's people. The Hurriyat's official
rejection stated: "We are ready to enter into a dialogue with
the Centre provided we are allowed to go to Pakistan, and New Delhi
accepts Hurriyat Conference as the only representative body in Jammu
and Kashmir." Stressing the second point, the statement added
that the alliance "...is not ready to join the crowded train
which goes nowhere.”
Abandoning
moves to involve the Hurriyat in negotiations, the government
decided to respond to the series of signals emanating from
Islamabad, which said that the Pakistan government wanted a summit
level meeting on Kashmir. The Indian government announcement, which
ended the Ramadan cease-fire, also invited Pakistan’s Chief
Executive and thereafter President, Pervez Musharraf, to visit India
for a composite dialogue, including the Kashmir issue. Responding to
this invitation, Pervez Musharraf, who assumed his country’s
Presidency on June 20, 2001, visited India in July 2001. The ensuing
summit was variously interpreted as being either inconclusive or a
failure.
These
trends were only a continuation of the scenario in year 2000 which
showed that peace initiatives do not necessarily imply a respite
from violence. Casualties in 2000, both among security forces and
terrorists, were well above the figures for 1999. The increase in
civilian casualties, however, was marginal, and there was also a
decline in the total number of incidents recorded (by approximately
5 per cent). But total casualties were significantly higher,
testimony to the increased focus and lethality of violence in the
State. The casualties suffered by the security forces showed the
most dramatic increase (79 per cent over 1999) followed by terrorist
casualties (67 per cent). The year 2000 had also repeatedly seen
hopes of peace destroyed by arbitrary acts of violence.
Meanwhile,
over 400,000 Kashmiri Pandits – out of an original population in
the Kashmir Valley of 425,000 prior to 1989 – continue to be
displaced. Official records indicate that some 216,820 of them live
as migrants in makeshift camps at Jammu, another 143,000 at Delhi
and thousands of others are now dispersed across the country. Many
of those registered at the camps have also been dispersed according
to the exigencies of employment and opportunities for education,
trade or business. There has been little effort to facilitate their
return to the Valley over the past year (2000), as earlier attempts
were neutralised by brutal campaigns of selective murder, including
the killing of seven Pandits at Sangrama in Budgam district in March
1997, three at Gul in Udhampur district in June 1997, 26 in the
massacre at Wandhama in Srinagar district in January 1998, and 26 at
Prankote in Udhampur district in April 1998. The possibility of
reversing the terrorists’ ethnic cleansing of the Valley remains
remote, and there are now reports of a hidden migration from some of
the border areas in the Jammu region where the Hindus are a
minority.
The
increased US attention on the sub-continent in the aftermath of
September 11, has revived calls from separatist forces within
J&K and Pakistan for US mediation in the conflict. The US has
consistently rejected the idea of mediation unless asked for by all
parties involved in the conflict. The US administration under
President George W. Bush endorsed India’s stance that terrorism
was being perpetrated in the State under the façade of a ‘freedom
struggle’ and went a step ahead by declaring outfits manned by
Pakistani and other foreign mercenaries, such as the LeT, JeM and
HuM, as Foreign Terrorist Organisations. The UK too has banned these
organisations.
In
the domestic context, it is evident that the Indian government is
yet to put in place a coherent strategy of response to terrorism.
Indeed, most institutions of civil governance in the State have
suffered a complete breakdown in the face of the terrorist
onslaught. This includes the State’s prosecution department &
judiciary, which, after nearly than fourteen years of terrorist
strife, 11,850 civilians and 3,460 security force personnel killed
and thousands others injured in the State as a result of terrorist
activities till the end of the year 2001, has just 303 undertrials
and has pronounced only 13 convictions in cases related to
terrorism. Only five of these convictions relate to serious
offences, while the others are all for relatively minor offences
such as illegal possession of arms and illegal border crossing.
By
special arrangement with Institute
for Conflict Management, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict
& Resolution and, South Asia Terrorism Portal.
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