Battle-hardened Pak militants want to revive '90s like terror-networks in Kupwara woods

While focus of security agencies in recent years has remained on curbing home-grown militancy in southern Kashmir, Army is suffering more casualties in northern frontier Kupwara district where more battle-hardened Pakistani militants are ready to revive terror-network in the woods.

Infested with heavily-armed foreign terrorists from 1993-2003, Kupwara was known as ‘Gateway of Militancy’ as most of the militants infiltrated through this district in 1990’s. Such was the dominance of militants in 1990’s in Kupwara that the Rajwar area in the district was called as ‘Chhota Pakistan’, while militants’ code-name for the picturesque Lolab valley was ‘University’.

It took the Army and J&K Police more than ten years to decimate the terror infrastructure and wrest control of the whole Kupwara and by 2005 the district was relatively peaceful. In the last decade the focus of security forces remained more on south Kashmir’s Tral, Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama areas as home-grown militancy became a new challenge.

However, the killing of Commanding Officer of Rashtriya Rifles (RR) 21st battalion Colonel Ashutosh Sharma, Major Anuj Sood, two soldiers and a sub inspector of J&K Police in Rajwar belt of Kupwara on Saturday comes after a long period of calm, and is eerily reminiscent of the years between 1993-2005. Earlier in the first week of April, five commandos of Army’s elite Para battalion were killed while foiling an infiltration bid in the same district.

In August 2000, Brigadier B S Shergill, Commander of Drugmulla-based 7 Sector and Col Rajender Chauhan Commanding Officer of the same 21-RR, which Col Shamra belonged, were killed in ambush by militants some kilometers away from Saturday’s gunfight site.

From early 90’s onwards till early 2000's, hordes of battle-hardened militants from Pakistan and Afghanistan had turned the Rajwar belt into a sort of liberated zone. They had set up bases, including concrete bunkers at some places. Sporting combat jackets and with light machine guns and rocket launchers on their shoulders, they reportedly would stop buses and even check photo-identity cards of passengers on the Handwara-Zachaldara-Wudar road.

“Pakistan spy agency ISI and its army want to revive that deadly phase of militancy in Kupwara so that it could act as a nerve center of terrorism in Kashmir. With this intention, in recent weeks, Pakistan army increased shelling and firing along the LoC to push in militants into the Valley from four launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) in Kupwara,” sources told DH.

They said the newly infiltrated militants were not only more trained and more motivated but can carry sophisticated weapons to inflict more damage on security forces.

However, a senior army officer said it’s a small group of militants which is under their scanner. “Setbacks do come alongside gallantry. We’ll wipe them out soon and nobody would be allowed to terrorise people again like the 1990's,” he asserted.