Army chief in Jammu to review security situation as attacks rise
Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi took stock of the security situation in Jammu as he held a meeting with top officers of paramilitary forces, intelligence agencies, and Jammu & Kashmir Police on Saturday amid a spate of terror attacks in the erstwhile peaceful region, officers aware of the matter said.
The meeting, held at the police headquarters in Jammu, took place two days after the Prime Minister Narendra Modiled crucial Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) discussed the recent surge in terror strikes in Jammu & Kashmir.
“Formation commanders briefed the army chief about the ongoing anti-terror operations across the region and also informed him of the strategies being adopted to eliminate the terrorists,” an officer aware of the closed-door meeting’s details said.
Northern Army chief Lieutenant General MV Suchindra Kumar, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 16 Corps Lieutenant General Navin Sachdev, Intelligence Bureau chief Tapan Kumar Deka, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) chief Ravi Sinha, Border Security Force (BSF) director general Nitin Agarwal, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) director general Anish Dayal Singh, J&K director general of police (DGP) RR Swain, ADGP law and order Vijay Kumar, and ADGP Jammu Anand Jain were among the officers present at the meeting, those aware of the developments said.
“The army chief was also informed about the steps taken to effectively plug infiltration routes along the 198km International Border and the 744km Line of Control (LoC). Given the spike in terror attacks across Jammu, the army has started deploying around 500 paramilitary commandos and 3,000 troops across vulnerable areas,” the officer quoted above added.
The recent terror attacks have sparked concerns that Jammu has emerged as the new hub of violence in the Union territory, where tens of thousands of people have died in extremist attacks since the 1990s. This year, 11 security personnel and 11 civilians have been killed in as many attacks by terrorists in the region. Five terrorists have been killed either in these encounters or in operations carried out by security forces. On Monday night, a group of three to five terrorists ambushed a search party on a hilltop in the Desa forests of Doda district, where seven attacks have taken place in little over a month. The security forces chased them into the treacherous terrain and thick foliage, leading to another firefight in the woods. Captain Brijesh Thapa, Naik D Rajesh, Sepoy Bijendra and Sepoy Ajay, from the counter-insurgency unit of 10 Rashtriya Rifles were killed in the encounter. Kashmir Tigers, a proxy outfit of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attacks by terrorists, who appeared to be well trained in guerilla warfare, have prompted the BSF and CRPF to consider changing their deployment in the terror hot spots, a second officer aware of developments said.
“The recent attacks may prompt a change in the deployment of the forces. Additional reinforcement will likely be sent to conduct search and cordon operations in the jungles of some of the hill districts, where the terrorists are hiding by taking advantage of the mountainous terrain,” the officer said, requesting anonymity.
This was General Dwivedi’s second visit to Jammu since he took over as the army chief on June 30. On Saturday, he also met J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, who said the security forces will now adopt the “Kashmir model” to combat terrorism across Jammu.
“The people of Jammu have always withstood terror, and I have full faith in the bravery of our jawans. The way the commanders of all the [terror] outfits were wiped out from here (Kashmir), our security forces and army will soon succeed in getting rid of them there (in Jammu region),” he said at an event in Srinagar.
Intelligence officers suspect that Pakistan army regulars trained in warfare tactics might have been a part of the terrorist groups that carried out the recent attacks in Jammu, weeks before the likely conduct of the J&K assembly elections.
Terror activity in areas south of the Pir Panjal mountains, including the Rajouri and Poonch sector, has spiked during the last two years. To deal with this resurgence of terror, the army earlier took a raft of measures, including sending more troops to the Rajouri-Poonch sector, reorienting its units operating there, and strengthening the intelligence network for conducting counterterror operations effectively.
Around 40 to 50 terrorists are believed to have infiltrated via the International Border in Jammu in the past two to three months, officers have said. “These terrorists have split into smaller groups of two to three terrorists. They need to be neutralized before the elections,” said former DGP SP Vaid.