With ears on ground, IGP Kashmir leads from front in war against terror

This year so far has been different in Kashmir in so many ways. It is perhaps for the first time in ages that the situation has been calm and cool even though the mercury is on an upward swing.

The situational turbulence that would manifest by way of increased police-public confrontations and stone-pelting clashes almost on a daily basis is already consigned to history. Not only are there no protests, no shutdowns, and strikes, but the people are going about their daily routine in such a manner that one really wonders if this is the same Kashmir which would hog international news for all the bad reasons, including rightwing radicalism.

Now add to it the fact that a total of 118 terrorists have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir in the first six months of this year. This drastic depletion of terrorist cadres has shrunk their numbers to anywhere between 160 and 170, the number who are active currently, according to the police.

Given the hit-rate at which security forces are neutralizing the terrorists, it won’t be an exaggeration to expect that within the next two months or so, Kashmir may well be on way to becoming terrorism free. 

Of course, this will also depend on other factors, including the success of the security forces at the borders in dealing with and tackling fresh infiltration bids by terrorists, which are facilitated by Pakistan through continued ceasefire violations.

Now the question is: how have all these been possible? What is it this time round which has made such a huge difference to the situation?

There are a few factors which can be credited for breaking the jinx – including of course the changed political situation and circumstances in the post-August 5, 2019 Kashmir. The abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which conferred special status on Jammu and Kashmir, is singularly responsible for having driven home the reality that the government at the Centre is ready to break away from past politics of disjointed appeasement and that there cannot be any compromise with the security and integrity of the country.

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Kashmir’s new police chief

To put this point across as forcefully, the state affected certain changes in the Valley’s security set-up as well. It brought in people who knew how to get things done. Kashmir’s new police chief – the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vijay Kumar, is one such figure. 

Kumar, a 1997 batch IPS officer, took up what would certainly have been the biggest challenge of his police career thus far at a time when everything was as if frozen in time – not only by the cold Kashmir winters but also by the August 05 abrogation decision. His challenges were neatly visible – dealing with the fallouts of the Centre's decision on the law and order front and then also reinvigorating the counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism grids. 

In the aftermath of August 5, the government’s decision to snap telecommunication links in Kashmir including even the mobile telephony and Internet had had an unintended fallout on the counter-terrorism measures. It had dried up both technical as well as human intelligence. 

Reviving the anti-terrorism operations after a hiatus of a few months was no mean task. Vijay Kumar not only revived the operations but also made sure that they yielded results – and the results have been so astounding that one really wonders as to how the stars too have been as if conspiring to favor him.

So besides neutralizing some of the top-ranking terrorists including Hizbul Mujahideen’s Riyaz Naiko, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Haider, Qari Yasir from Jaish and Burhan Koka from AGH, security forces also eliminated Pakistani militant Fauji Bhai, who was an expert in building IEDs and Junaid Sehrai, who was a son of a senior Hurriyat leader Ashraf Sehrai and was instrumental in recruiting youth to terrorism ranks. 

Kumar known form clean, clear, and swift operations with his dedicated team, have killed 118 terrorists Kashmir division, (107 were locals, while 11 were from Pakistan) during the first six months. Police also say that 67 Kashmiri youths have joined terror outfits this year, and from among them 24 have already been killed and 12 arrested.

There has also been a 48% dip in the recruitment of local terrorists from January to June-end as compared to the numbers recorded during the same period last year, according to police. The majority of the terrorists who have been killed this year belonged to the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Ansar-ul-Gazwat-ul Hind (AGH) and Islamic State Jammu Kashmir followed by Al Badr outfit is also among those killed.

READ | 116 Terrorists Killed In Hinterland Of The Kashmir Valley In 6 Months: J&K Police

'Ears on ground' approach

Those in the know of the things credit this extraordinary success on the anti-terrorism front to a few more factors as well. While credit is due to IGP for leading from the front, what makes his contribution unique is his ‘ears on ground’ approach. Having worked in different districts for quite some time at different operational positions, Kumar has been able to create a network of his own, which together with the technical surveillance makes intelligence gathering and subsequent action on it relatively easy and far more effective. 

A policeman to the core, Kumar is perhaps one such lucky cop who is operating without any political interference whatsoever. With the political mainstream having gone out of currency since past August, police are operating without any pulls and pressures which are synonymous with political governments. Indeed, this is also a reason which has enabled the police to get a green signal for something that it had been pitching for years without any success. 

For years together, Kashmir had been witnessed to the funerals of the terrorists killed in encounters becoming a huge spectacle, and expression of public anger and outrage. These funerals would automatically become sort of recruitment rallies for the terrorists, bringing them fresh recruits and supporters. 

Police had been pleading for putting an end to this practice, but political conveniences (both National Conference and Peoples' Democratic Party) of the time had ensured that the proposal remained stonewalled. But in the absence of political meddling, police finally got its wish. Now, there are no big funerals. Slain terrorists are not even buried in their native districts. In a low-key manner, slain terrorists are laid to rest in some other district in the presence of a few of their immediate relatives and a magistrate and after following medico-legal formalities like taking their DNA samples.

This practice has ensured that the terrorists are no longer able to use funerals of their fallen colleagues to attract fresh recruits to their ranks. It was Vijay Kumar again who has been instrumental in getting this policy through, and obviously its results are there for everyone to see.

Another area of his focus has been dealing with narco-terrorism. Thus far, two major modules have been busted in north Kashmir, and narcotics and illegal currency worth crores seized. Quite a few arrests of overground militant workers have also been made. These were the people involved in the narcotics trade, proceeds from which would go to the terrorists.

(Photo: Twitter/@KashmirPolice)

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