Forces focused on maintaining law & order in sensitive areas
The civilian population in Jammu & Kashmir alone has not been hit by the snapping of communication lines after the abrogation of Article 370, it has also badly affected intelligence gathering which has seen a sharp 70 per cent decline in the last three weeks.
Intelligence gathering was the key reasons for the success of many recent anti-terror operations in which top militants were neutralised following pin-point real time tip-off.
Restrictions on movement and communication have seen few anti-militant operations in the last three weeks. Officials in the security establishment said the perfect synergy among local police, paramilitary and the Army led to neutralisation of nearly 140 terrorists, including the top leadership, this year so far. The figure crossed the 200-mark last year again due to pinpoint intelligence, they added.
However, the local administration, paramilitary forces and police are now totally focused on maintaining law and order in sensitive regions of the Kashmir Valley, which has impacted the intelligence gathering network
Moreover, the informers are not able to relay the intelligence due to restrictions on communication and movement. Similarly, the militants are also not moving from one place to another which generally gives away their location leading to encounters. This phenomenon is more pronounced in South Kashmir which is more urbanised and densely populated due to overwhelming deployment of forces to ensure restrictions, sources said.
Meanwhile, the security forces are exercising maximum restraint and local commanders were instructed to conduct anti-militancy operations in the night hours. The main reason for this is to prevent people gathering at the encounter site and indulging in stone-pelting leading to law and order situation, they said. This restriction is also followed to avoid collateral damage in the present situation.
As regards the Pakistan Army’s bid to stoke violence, officials said at least 10 infiltration bids were foiled since the revocation of Article 370 on August 5. However, these attempts will increase in the coming days as the ISI and the Pakistan Army are determined to push in large number of terrorists from across the Line of Control (LoC)to carry out terrorist strikes within the State, they said. Some spectacular terrorist incidents in other parts of the country are also feared, officials said adding more than 100 Afghan fighters recruited by Pakistan are poised to come in from across.
Also, the ceasefire violations by the Pakistan Army on the LoC have seen a sharp jump since August 5 with more than 230 incidents. The overall figure for ceasefire violations this year is 1,890 as compared to 1,700 odd for the entire last year.