With the number of violent incidents in Jammu & Kashmir rising, the Army has deployed 5,000 additional troops to provide security cover to the Amarnath Yatra. The annual pilgrimage starts on June 29 and ends on August 7. The Army has taken this measure "to ensure communal harmony and semblance of normalcy".
The yatra is preceded by Eid on June 26 and the security forces are not willing to take any chances as parts of Kashmir are restive. In order to maintain law and order, the Army has positioned five additional battalions(one battalion has 1,000 soldiers) along the sensitive National Highway 44 besides the two routes to Amarnath shrine including via Pahalgam and Sonamarg.
Giving details of the redeployment, officials said here on Wednesday the five additional battalions will secure the National Highway from Jawahar tunnel, Banihal up to the shrine.
This distance is more than 120 km and the yatra passes through parts of South Kashmir now witnessing stone pelting and stepped up violence by militants.
The reinforcements are besides the troops already deployed in that area and additional 25,000 para-military now in position to guard the yatra, they said.
While three Army battalions will guard the Highway, the remaining two units will provide "prophylactic security" to lakhs of devotees who reach the holy shrine either through Pahalgam or Sonamarg routes, they said.
The additional troops will secure all the heights along the route to deny any advantage to militants to attack the yatra besides patrolling the National Highway 24X7, officials said. These troops are equipped with night vision devices and electro-optronic surveillance equipment to make sure that the high profile annual event passes off without any untoward incident.
The Central Government has already dispatched more than 25,000 personnel of para-military forces including the Central Reserve Police Force(CRPF) and Border Security Force(BSF) to provide "proximate security" to the yatris. While the para-military and local police form the inner security cordon guarding the yatri camps and other facilities besides the route, the Army forms the outer cordon.
Explaining the meaning of "prophylactic" security, they said the Army battalions will provide cover from a distance as the Jammu and Kashmir police is the lead agency for security of the yatra.
The security forces including the Army and para-military forces will also step up search operations in the coming weeks before the yatra begins to exert pressure on militants to come out of their hideouts in the villages in restive South Kashmir and move to forests, they said. It is easier for the Army to go after the terrorists in the forests as the forces do not have to worry about collateral damage, they added.
The pilgrimage has, fortunately not seen any untoward incident in the last one decade or so, they said adding militants had targeted the yatra last in 2003 and 2007.
Given the scale of the event, livelihood of more than one lakh local traders and pony owners of Jammu and Kashmir depends on the yatra. In this back drop, militants, therefore, are reluctant to incur their wrath by fomenting trouble during the pilgrimage period, officials said.
The local business and pony suffered owners suffered great losses last year as the yatra was affected in the wake of mass protests after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in July. About three lakh yatris could only visit the holy Amarnath shrine though the administration had expected that more than five lakhs will come, they said.