The biggest terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir in recent times has come as a major setback to the Narendra Modi government at the Centre which has been claiming that its tough policy to deal with terror had brought down militancy in the valley.
The fresh terror strike, that claimed the lives of at least 44 CRPF personnel, has clearly demonstrated that such claims are far from truth. It has also come at a time when the state is under President's Rule and the law and order is directly being overseen by the Centre.
K Vijay Kumar, adviser to the state governor who is tasked with handling security related matters, said that militancy in the state has been on the wane, but it does not mean that it was wiped out.
“Earlier there were sniper attacks on camps of security forces. The forces neutralised several terrorists, but there are others who are still active. It is like a vessel which keeps getting empty and filled up at the same time. We can never say it’s over. There have been inputs of terrorists who are active in using IEDs and this (Pulwama attack) seems to be the handiwork of some of them who are still at large,” Kumar, a counter-insurgency expert and former chief of the CRPF, told THE WEEK.
He further said that it is too early to say whether there is involvement of cross-border terrorists, but it has always been a mixed group of local and foreign militants operating in the valley.
Sources, meanwhile, disclosed that troop movements have been going on in the state with forces' personnel going on and returning from leave. It was also due to the inclement climate that they have been travelling together in large numbers.
At least 44 CRPF personnel, including a Keralite, were killed and five injured in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 100 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district on Thursday.
More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir.
Experts of anti-terror commando force the National Security Guard (NSG) and investigators of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) left for Jammu and Kashmir on Friday to join the probe into the terror attack.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh will be in Srinagar on Friday where he will meet senior security officials and review the ground situation and discuss operational actions. Meanwhile, the home ministry officials said arrangements are being made to airlift the mortal remains of the slain soldiers.
(This story originally appeared in The Week)
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