Suicide attacks on the increase in Jammu and Kashmir
New Delhi’s aggressive posturing has not brought any tangible results, says security analyst
On Sept. 26, four militants targeted the Indian army’s 76 Artillery unit on the Uri-Kaman road near the Line of Control (LoC) before being killed by security forces.
The latest attack took place on Tuesday, at a highly fortified Border Security Force (BSF) camp near Srinagar airport. Four militants scaled the camp’s security wall, threw grenades, and opened fire indiscriminately.
The firefight began around 4:00 a.m. local time and lasted for 10 hours, resulting in the death of the four attackers and one BSF officer.
Muneer Ahmad Khan, inspector general of police in Jammu and Kasmir, told Arab News the attack was “the handiwork of (Pakistan based) Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militants.”
Khan added, “There are a few more militants around the valley and we have to track them down.”
One of the security personnel involved in the gunbattle on Tuesday told Arab News, “Unlike local groups, these militants were well-trained, and it showed in their fighting precision. They were wellequipped and quite prepared to handle a long battle.”
Shuja Ul Haq, a Srinagar-based journalist who has been covering militancy in the valley for more than a decade, said there is now “a revival of suicide attacks in the (Kashmir) valley,” adding that for over a decade there had been none.
“Fidayeen (suicide) attacks were common in 1990s, but they have picked up again,” Haq told Arab News. “According to the security personnel, men were sent from across the border to execute this task.”
Haq added, “JeM has been silent for quite some time. But there was already anticipation that there would be retaliation from the militants after the Indian security personnel recently eliminated more than 120 militants in the valley.”
Suman Sharma, a security analyst and former instructor at the Indian Military Academy, pointed out that the escalation in attacks coincides with the anniversary of India’s cross-border strike into Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“India has been in a celebratory mode on the anniversary of the surgical strike,” she said. “The recent attack is an attempt by the militant groups — who are called non-state actors by India — to (diminish) Indian euphoria and show that the cross-border military attack by New Delhi has not affected them at all.”
However, Sharma continued: “New Delhi’s aggressive posturing in the valley for the last year-and-a-half has not brought any tangible results either in Kashmir or at the border, so (they) need to talk. Bring different stakeholders on the table.”
NEW DELHI: In the past eight days, two military camps in Indianadministered Kashmir have been attacked by militants.