New Delhi: The Resistance Front (TRF) – an offshoot of the Pakistan-based terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), remains quite active in Jammu & Kashmir, and it could conduct maximum recruitment in 2022 among all terror outfits active within the Union Territory.
Sources, however, say there has been a tremendous decline in the recruitment of fresh ones into various groups, and as high as a 64.64 per cent rate of elimination of terrorists has been reported in the calendar year 2022.
Official sources say during the year while 99 terrorists were recruited, and 73 of them were into TRF or LeT; as many as 64 of them were killed by the security forces. In 2022, 13 terrorists were recruited into Jaish-e-Mohammad, and six others joined the Hizbul Mujahedeen. Of them, 64 were eliminated in multiple operations and encounters; 17 were arrested, and thus, 18 remained ‘still active’ by the year’s end.
Sources say since 2016, a maximum of 201 terrorists were ‘recruited fresh’ in 2018 — months before the abrogation of Article 370 and bifurcation of the state on Aug 5, 2019. While the recruitment figures dropped to 140 in 2019, there was a modest rise to 167 in 2020, and yet again, in 2021, the recruitment numbers came down to 136.
A maximum of 75 fresh terror recruits were eliminated in 2021, and in 2018 and 2020, the terrorists killed 71 (both years). Sources maintained that since the bifurcation of Jammu & Kashmir, there had been significant improvements in the overall situation. In 2016, while 95 people had joined terror ranks, only eight were eliminated.
According to sources, there has been a “continuous decline” in the recruitment of terrorists since 2016.
However, security forces are still faced with overall challenges on multiple fronts.
“The use of drones by Pakistan for sending weapons, issuing of online threats and hartal (Bandh) calls have added to the challenges,” sources said adding; moreover, there is a new trend of “hybrid terrorist” — who can be called for “part-time terror actions.”
It is worth mentioning that the Union government informed Parliament in July 2022 that there has been a substantial decline in terrorist attacks from 417 in 2018 to 229 in 2021.
Parliament was also informed by Union Minister of State for Home, Nityanand Rai, that altogether, 5,502 Pandits were provided government jobs in different departments of the Government of Jammu & Kashmir in the Valley under the Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP). Further, as per the records, no Kashmiri Pandit has reportedly migrated from the Valley during the said period.
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