A spate of terror attacks, including in as many as four incidents in the space of just 48 hours in Jammu & Kashmir this week, points to increased militant activity. What has added another dimension to tense situations created by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists crossing the border to sow panic is the fact that six of the attackers killed in south Kashmir were of the homegrown Hizbul-ul-Mujahidin variety.
A string of attacks, spurred since the new government took over in New Delhi on June 9 with a bus carrying pilgrims in Reasi in the Jammu division also being targeted, shows clear signs of terror being whipped up by commands from Pakistan and the locals picking up the signals to advertise their discontent.
The holding of Lok Sabha elections in J&K to which a promising proportion of the voting public turned up after years and the fact that this has led to a positive view in New Delhi of holding polls to the J&K Assembly in time to satisfy the diktat of the Supreme Court may also have led to this stepping up of terror activity.
There is no letting down of the guard so far as tackling terrorism is concerned as it has shown signs of spreading to the Jammu division also. In the last year or so, indoctrinated local malcontents as well as terrorists of Pakistani origin are said to be increasingly using the complex terrain of Jammu, where they find less concentration of an Indian Army presence, to step up attacks.
The shift of focus of terrorists from Kashmir to Jammu as well as the nearness of the monsoon season when crossing over to India are said to become somewhat easier points to how the Indian Army may have to up its counterterrorism operations if the state is to prevail in its 25-year fight against terror.
The Army may have lost close to 50 personnel in the last three years while having eliminated terrorists many times that number. The ground reality ordains that there be no complacency which can be bred by belief in the statistics of declining terror attacks that the Centre likes to put out to make its point on how the abrogation of Article 370 has changed the atmosphere in J&K.
The reality is still the lobbed grenade or sniper fire aimed mostly at symbols of state power like the soldier taking lives, though civilians are beginning to take more hits, which betrays the desperation of these brainwashed militants.
