MHA’s focus shifts to dismantling of terror ecosystem, funding in J&K

Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s meeting with the top Police, security and intelligence officials in New Delhi on Wednesday has made it clear that the Centre’s focus in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir has now shifted to neutralising the separatists’ soft power.

This has happened at a time when the top and middle-rung leadership of all the known terror outfits has been wiped out and the insurgency is left with no poster boys.

If the highly placed official sources in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) are to be believed, at least five of the ten districts in the Kashmir valley are being declared as ‘militancy free’ in a few weeks. Two satellite districts of the summer capital of Srinagar—Budgam and Ganderbal—are being given into the total operational control of the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). With this, as and when it happens, Army will have no internal security footprint in the Central Kashmir as Srinagar already falls in the exclusive domain of the Police and the CRPF.

This will be a major statement of the Narendra Modi government on the restoration of peace as the regular Army would be for the first time since 1990 vacating the entire Central Kashmir for the Police and paramilitary forces. The security agencies, including the Army and the J&K Police, have been claiming that due to sustained counterterror operations and concomitant crackdown on the terror ecosystem, particularly after August 2019, the number of active terrorists has dipped to the lowest level of the last seven years.

According to these agencies and the Government’s statements and replies to questions in the Parliament, all other indicators, including the new recruitment of the cadres, have shown a remarkable decrease after the dismissal of the Mehbooba Mufti government in June 2018. Notwithstanding some attacks on soft targets, including the members of the minority communities, Panchayati Raj Institutions, Urban Local Bodies and the mainstream political parties, the civilian killings too have dropped to the lowest point.

After the unprecedented car bomb blast, which killed 40 CRPF personnel near Awantipora on 14 February 2019, terror groups have lost the capacity of striking on hard targets like the Police and security forces.
In fact a fresh process of eliminating the separatist-terrorist support structure began in May 2017 when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) launched a major crackdown in Jammu and Kashmir. Amid a series of raids and search operations, dozens of the separatist activists and leaders and their collaborators in other institutions were rounded up, booked in fresh criminal cases and lodged in different jails outside the valley.

Round-2 of this crackdown was initiated immediately after the imposition of the Governor’s rule in June 2018. Round-3 was executed after the erstwhile State was split into the two UTs and its special constitutional status was withdrawn in 2019. Subsequently, other Central agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), as also the UT’s own Counterintelligence wing and the State Investigation Agency (SIA), joined a coordinated crackdown to squeeze terror funding and dismantle the whole ecosystem of the separatists’ soft power.

Apparently the NDA Government at the Centre took five full years to identify all the vehicles of the separatist-terrorist ecosystem. Its key characters were comfortably entrenched not only in the Hurriyat Conference and JKLF but also in several mainstream political parties and other institutions including the Police, civil administration, Bar, media, academia and business. The last 40 months witnessed aggressive interventions and developments—cases against top lawyers, dismissals of government employees, detentions of ‘OGWs’ under PSA and UAPA, seizure of properties, termination of a separatist-controlled Press club.

Many of the mainstream politicians, including four former Chief Ministers—Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mehbooba Mufti—have been strongly critical of these measures. They have invariably alleged that the BJP-led government at the Centre was “misusing the Central agencies” for political vendetta. They call the current situation of peace as a “lull before the storm”, claiming that a new political turmoil would burst anytime.

The situation on the ground, however, does not support the threats and apprehensions of the mainstream opposition leaders. Hardliner Geelani’s hartal calendars, incessant stone pelting, funeral processions and gun salutes for the militants killed in encounters, violent demonstrations, diktats and threats to government officials have become history. There have been virtually no civilian killings from the bullets of the security forces or the Police in the last over three years. Pellet guns, which were largely used during Omar Abdullah’s, Mufti Sayeed’s and Mehbooba Mufti’s governments, have not been seen or used anywhere after August 2019.

Admittedly a degree of void continues to exist between the people and the government and bureaucracy but a slew of initiatives is underway to narrow the gap and associate the masses with the transformation process—development, trade, tourism, education et al.

In October this year, Home Minister Amit Shah conducted his first visit to Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370. He also addressed his first ever political rally in the valley, at Baramulla, which was attended by over 30,000 people. Being the chief executive of all the UTs, Shah has been regularly reviewing J&K’s political situation, development and security scenario. Until yesterday, the prime concern of the MHA meetings was elimination of the hardware of the terror organisations. For a significant change, according to well-placed sources, Shah directed the Central and the UT agencies to focus on the ‘separatist-terrorist ecosystem’.

Shah, according to sources, said in the meeting on Wednesday, which was among others attended by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, that the separatist-terrorist ecosystem in Jammu and Kashmir required to be dismantled. “A terror ecosystem comprising elements that aid, abet and sustain the terrorist-separatist campaign to the detriment of the well-being of common people requires to be dismantled,” Shah was quoted as saying in an official statement.

Over a dozen separatist leaders are among scores of the Kashmir activists who have been booked for ‘terror funding’ under UAPA and other laws and lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. They have been charge-sheeted even as the investigations and raids on their offices and residences are still continuing intermittently. Of them, only the JKLF chief Yasin Malik has pleaded guilty and he has been sentenced to life imprisonment. JKLF and Jamaat-e-Islami were banned in February 2019.

The pro-Pakistan politico-religious organisation Jamaat-e-Islami, which once declared Hizbul Mujahideen as its ‘military arm’, has been the key target of the law enforcement and investigation agencies since February 2019.
The SIA has reportedly identified as many as 250 assets of the JeI, valued at more than Rs 1,000 crore, including 60 in the Jammu division, for seizure under law. Of them, around 30 properties have been seized and seized under orders of respective District Magistrates. These include school buildings, offices and commercial complexes. Sources insist that the MHA was also reviewing the FCRA registration of over a hundred trusts and NGOs receiving foreign funds and operating in J&K.