Selective killings, drones attack in J&K kept MHA on toes this year

Border dwellers are having sigh of relief in this year as the guns remained silent along the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir after the Ceasefire Violation pact was reached between India and Pakistan, but the recent spurt in the targeted killings as well as drone attacks has kept Ministry Home Affairs (MHA) on toes in 2021.
As per data, 36 civilians were killed by the militants mostly in the Kashmir valley till December 23, including five local Hindus and Sikhs, and five non-local labourers or vendors. “Around 22 local Muslims, including a Muslim salesman of a Kashmiri Pandit shopkeeper, were also targeted by militants,” official data said.

Meanwhile, a terrorist belonging to the Islamic State Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK) outfit, who was involved in the killing of a police officer, was killed in an encounter with security forces in Anantnag, police said on Sunday.
The encounter at K Kalan, Srigufwara area of the south Kashmir district began late on Saturday night. It was the third encounter between security forces and terrorists in south Kashmir on Saturday. Two terrorists each were killed in the gunfights at Shopian and Pulwama earlier on Saturday. A police official said security forces launched a cordon and search operation in K Kalan, Srigufwara area of Anantnag following inputs about the presence of terrorists there. The search operation turned into an encounter after the hiding terrorists fired on the forces, who retaliated, he said. In the ensuing gunfight, a terrorist was killed during the night, the official said. Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, Vijay Kumar identified the slain terrorist as Faheem Bhat, resident of Kadipora Anantnag. “He has recently joined #terror outfit ISJK and was involved in killing of Martyr ASI Mohd Ashraf, who was posted at PS Bijbehara,” the IGP Kashmir said in a tweet. ASI Ashraf was shot dead by terrorists outside Bijbehara hospital on Wednesday evening.

Meanwhile, two policemen were injured after militants hurled a grenade at a police party in Pulwama district on Sunday. The incident occurred at Pulwama’s Main Chowk, they said. Two police personnel were injured in the explosion. They have been hospitalized, the officials said.

As per security experts, the rise in the killings can also be attributed to tight vigil along the borders which was helpful in controlling the infiltration from across the border, the ceasefire along the border which often was carried out by the Pakistan to infiltrate subversive elements into the Indian Territory also helped in some way.

Also the security agencies have detained the militant facilitators and over ground workers, which too kept the terrorism related incidents under control. As a result of which J&K witnessed less encounters with militants and 179 terrorists were neutralized by the security forces as compared to 232 in last year.

The tightening of screws by the security agencies led the militants to the change the course and carry out targeted killing of civilians, especially the minority community in the Kashmir valley which stayed despite the mass migration of 90s. In October and November, the Valley had seen a series of target killings, the gory acts in which several members of minority Kashmiri Pandit and Sikh communities and workforce from Bihar, Uttar

Pradesh and West Bengal — both Hindus and Muslims — fell to the bullets of the assassins.
The authorities had blamed these killings on The Resistance Front and a couple of other obscure outfits which they insist were actually offshoots of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. They had also claimed later that most of those involved in these targeted killings were “neutralized” in swift operations of the J&K police and other security forces.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir saw 10% rise in drone sighting instances in the 2021. Drone sightings along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir have increased following the attack on the Air Force Station in Jammu in June this year. Two explosions had rocked the high security technical area of the station on the intervening night of June 26-27. Two Indian Air Force personnel had sustained minor injuries.

In the wake of frequent UAV sightings, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has ordered stricter adherence to the Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) that was framed to handle threats from sub-conventional aerial platforms like drones, paragliders, microlight aircraft, hot-air balloons.

During the last one-and-a-half years, police have seized a large number of arms, ammunition and explosives that have been dropped using drones. These include 16 AK 47 rifles, three M4 US-made rifles, 34 pistols, 15 grenades and 18 IEDs including three big ones.

The use of drones is also been probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is trying to trace the key people behind these flights, according to officials familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. The Pakistan army, the country’s spy agency ISI, and terror outfits Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), are often using drones instead of operatives to send narcotics, explosives and weapons to India, these officials added.