New Delhi concerned over spurt in terror violence in Jammu

In the evening, J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha chaired a high-level meeting with the Army Chief, various heads of security and law enforcement agencies including Border Security Force (BSF), Central Reserve Police Force and other Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), the J&K police and various intelligence agencies on the prevailing security situation in the Jammu region.

The Lt. Governor asked the officers to pro-actively conduct coordinated counter-terrorism operations in the Jammu region. The official sources quoted him as telling the meeting,

“We must launch meticulous and well-planned counter-terrorism operations with greater synergy between all the agencies to wipe out terrorists and those aiding and abetting them.” He also called for further strengthening the security grid in the hinterland and counter-infiltration grid along the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) with Pakistan to ensure zero cross-border infiltration.

The sources said that the Centre has asked the J&K government and the security forces to scale up counter-terrorism engagement in the Jammu region by strictly following the strategy and practical steps that succeeded in crushing the militancy and terrorism to a greater scale in the Kashmir Valley. The counter-militancy and combat terrorism model pursued in the Valley envisaged ‘eliminate the combatants and take no prisoners, destroy or take hold of private properties used by militants as hideouts or for planning or carrying out terrorist acts, book their Over Ground Workers (OGWs) and sympathisers under anti-terrorism and other tough laws and identify, track, and pursue their other supporting networks particularly terrorism financing’.

The Centre has also asked for strengthening the existing VDGs and involving more people, particularly ex-servicemen, in the counterterrorism campaign in the Jammu region. Already, a number of measures have been initiated to enhance synergy between various agencies. These include joint training involving the Army, the J&K police and CAPFs. Further, a robust intelligence sharing mechanism between the uniformed forms and the intelligence agencies has been evolved.

Home Minister Amit Shah had at a recent meeting held in New Delhi on J&K asked for crushing the growing militancy and terrorist activities in the Jammu region by going hard on the perpetrators and the elements supporting them.” He directed the security forces to generate human intelligence to reach out to the militants and plug the points where from the foreign terrorists have managed to sneak into J&K from Pakistan and PoJK.

This was the second visit of the Army Chief to Jammu in less than three weeks after taking charge as the 30th chief of the Indian Army on June 30.

On July 3, the newly appointed Army Chief overflew the LoC in Poonch district and later closeted with senior military officers at the headquarters of the 93 Infantry Brigade in the strategic town of Poonch and also in Jammu to review the operational preparedness in the J&K frontier.

Dozens of security personnel — mostly from the Army — have been killed in terror-related incidents in the Jammu region since 2021. Earlier this month, nine Army jawans including a Captain and a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) were killed in two separate terror attacks in remote wooded areas of Doda and Kathua district.

Currently, massive search and counterterrorism operations are being spearheaded by the Army alongside the J&K police and the CAPFs in vast areas of Doda, Udhampur, Reasi and Kathua districts. At places, dozens of VDGs, armed with mainly .303 rifles, are helping the security forces in hunting down the assailants who ran into thick woods after attacking the Army in Doda’s Dessa and Kathua’s Machedi areas on July 8 and 15, respectively.

General Dwivedi has at his meetings with the local Army commanders and senior officers of the J&K police, BSF, the CAPFs and intelligence agencies reviewed the progress of these operations. He also gave instructions to the officers to act tough against militants and their supporting foreign mercenaries and eliminate the ‘scourge of terrorism’ by all means, the sources said. He asked the officers to take more effective counter-terrorism measures and also combat terrorist ideologies.