Militants in Kashmir adopt new strategy, remain silent

As militants have “restricted their movement and are laying low” after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, the encounters between the security forces and the ultras have seen a drastic decline.

Since August 5 till date, only nine encounters were reported across Kashmir in which 19 militants were killed. Between January and July 2019, over 135 militants were killed by security forces.

A senior police officer said less movement by militants was the major reason as to why the number of encounters has gone down.

“Militants are laying low and they have restricted their movement also. The militant movement we used to track before August 5 is not the same. Our inputs from the ground suggest that militants are not moving from one point to another, the way they used to prior to August 5,” he revealed.

“It seems like the strategy of militants is to remain silent for some time,” he said, while denying the reports that snapping of mobile and internet services after August 5 affected the anti-militancy operations in Kashmir.

“Our mechanism to track militant movement continues to remain the same. Human and technical intelligence of security grid is intact and remains undeterred despite internet gag in the Valley,” he added.

Sources also attribute less number of encounters to a decline in the local recruitment into militancy. “The trend of local youth joining militancy has come down compared to previous years. Besides, the reports of infiltration of a huge number of militants are also not true. These two factors, combined with a militant strategy to restrict their movement, are the reasons for the decline in encounters,” they revealed.

Recently, a top Border Security Forces (BSF) officer said that infiltration and ceasefire violations have not increased post the abrogation of Article 370 and the two issues were not linked in any way.

Inspector General of the BSF, Ajmal Singh Khatak, said, “Infiltration was happening before abrogation of Article 370 and it continues to happen. Same is the case with ceasefire violations,” he said.

He said that a large number of militants were present on the launching pads on the other side of Line of Control (LoC) to sneak into Indian territory. “The militants are trying to get in before the snowfall would block all the passes on the LoC,” the IG BSF said.