The increase in the insurgency in the Jammu division and growing terrorist activities in the last three months has been a matter of deep concern for the entire country. Jammu division has been almost free from terrorist activities since 2009 and Pak sponsored terror activities were predominantly visible in the valley due to obvious reasons of readily available and accessible hideouts, common religious sentiments, and better communication and access through POK especially from the Muzaffarabad and Mirpur. ISI and the Pak Army facilitated terrorist organizations stationed in POK and West Punjab to bridge them with international terror outfits like ISIS, Jaish-e Mohammed, and Lashkar e-Taiba to synergize their operations, and logistics with local outfits developed by them as a mouthpiece. However, the abrogation of Article 370 and administrative restructuring led to better coordination, and concentration of different agencies like para-military and military forces, intelligence, enforcement, and civil administration to implement the effective strategy to iso late terrorist outfits thereby ensuring Delinking their local support, logistic and financial network. During the period of Chinese aggression on LAC, the main focus was shifted to counter the Chinese move by stepping up resources to ward LAC through the major redeploying of security forces including Rashtriya rifles from Jammu division and other locations. The impact of less active local political leadership under presidential rule has further fueled and made additional access of terror outfits into the tribal Gurjar and Gadariya along the border and LOC. The security intelligence network is highly supported by these locals to identify hideouts their Logistics and moments as this network was Partly compromised. The successful conduct of the Lok Sabha election, as well as the impending legislative Assembly Elections in J&K latest by 30th September 24 as directed by the Supreme Court of India, has further prompted Pakistan state-sponsored organizations to accelerate terror activities in J and K to Destabilize the democratic process and environment of peace in the province of J and K. A very poor economic state of Pakistan, highly unstable government, least public support and working under the direct influence of Pakistan army has made ISI and army to Launch a highly intense terror operation in Jammu and Kashmir as a face-saving tactic. China is also threatened and feels insecure due to the growing status of India in all the spheres of governance, international diplomacy, economy, and military pow er made a planned strategy by China to align with ISI, Pak army, and Taliban to indirectly augment the terror activities in Jammu and Kasmir. This has prompted Paki stan state-sponsored terror outfits to redesign and to focus on the Jammu division. It is learned that there was a coordination meeting in May 2024 among all stakeholders of Pak state-sponsored terror activities to design a new strategy to target and expand terror operations in the Hindu-dominated Jam mu Division in collaboration with the commandos, serving military personnel and ex-servicemen belonging to the Pakistan Army to target Indian security personnel and pilgrims in addition to the Kashmir valley which is dominated by the other ethnic community to disturb the religious harmony of highly significant Jammu division. Another attempt was made to shield the state sponsored terror operation, and a mask of locals was put forward to span activities as local militancy. However, recovered deadly weapons like the US-made M4 carbine, Steyr AUG, an Austrian as sault rifle, and other highly sophisticated military types of equipment like night vision sights telescopic lenses, sniper guns and encrypted radio sets crafted from Chinese tech recovered from killed terrorists established their international identity and probable link of the Chinese PLA with these terror activities. While leaving Afghanistan, the USA and NATO forces had left a large junk of weapons and other military equipments. Taliban started directly selling these weapons and equipment to terror organizations. The terror outfits are mostly composed of Pakistan based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Lashkar-e-Taiba, and other terror groups that are believed to be part of operations against the US in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban. The direct support of commandos and personnel from the Pak army or ex-servicemen is likely to be in existence with such terrorist activities. It is also presumed that The CPEC corridor is being used for the transportation of deadly weapons from China and other countries directly to the terror outfits in Pakistan to provide them strength to launch operations in J and K. In addition to the traditional route of infiltration and logistics through the LOC and International border, ISI is also using other routes like Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Nepal via North Bihar and Uttarakhand to provide weapons, logistics, and financial funding. India has taken collective measures to step up the intelligence network in Jammu Division as well as in other parts of Kashmir and Punjab with strong coordination among all intelligence agencies irrespective of civil or military intelligence agencies. Efforts are being implemented to get local tribles back into the fold of Indian interest. The security forces have adopted the strategy of three tire operations comprised of alertness, coordination, and decisive destruction of terror outfits and their Local Network. The security forces will ensure that terrorists are neutralized at the very first point of contact, intense search operations to identify those who are already infiltrated and operating through remote areas to neutralize them. All out efforts will be made to destroy the terror network ecosystem including their hide outs, chain of logistics, surveillance, source funding, and collector channels. The process of reorganizing the deployment of security forces has started. The Govt has decided to enforce the capability of security operations by deploying more than 500 para commandos for intense and decisive operations. It is presumed that all infiltrated terrorists whose number may vary from 65 to 75 will be eliminated or recovered within a very short period. The long-term strategies to eliminate terror activities from the J&K forever have to be planned now. The Indian policy to curb terrorism remained intended to retaliate the terror operation within the boundaries of the international border or LOC and LAC. However, the paradigm shift was evident from the policy of strategic restraint to the Punitive approach towards terrorism was evident and established once the cross-border surgical and air strikes were carried out in POK in 2016 and 2019. Despite such a landmark and decisive approach, the Pak state-run terror activities are continuing. Hence it is very essential to steps further to eliminate entire terror outfits in the POK and in adjoining areas of Pakistan. POK has to be realigned and re-integrated with India at the earliest. It will be highly prudent to raise the issue to expose Pakistan and extend official diplomatic support to the Balloch against their horrifying genocide and complete violation of human rights.
Major General J.K.S. Parihar, Sena Medal, Bar to Vishisht Seva Medal (Retd.), Former Additional Director General, AFMS and Expert on Defence and International Strategic Affairs.
