Six years ago, on February 14, 2019, a red coloured car drove amidst vehicles carrying Central Police Force Police (CRPF) personnel in a convoy from Jammu to Srinagar. A Jaish e Mohammad (JeM) suicide bomber Adil Ahmad Dar, who was driving the car, detonated an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) as it collided with a convoy vehicle. The incident happened near Pulwama and led to martyrdom of over 40 CRPF men.
Incidentally, terrorist group JeM was founded by Maulana Masood Azhar who was released in Kandhar (Afghanistan) after an Indian Airlines (IA) flight IC-814 was hijacked in December 1999. Soon after his release in Kandhar, the Maulana surfaced in Pakistan and a series of suicide attacks all over Jammu & Kashmir followed.
A month after the Pulwama blast, Maulana Masood Azhar’s nephew Mohammad Umar Farooq alias Idrees Bhai was killed in an encounter in Kashmir. He was son of Ibrahim Athar, one of the five terrorists who had hijacked the IC-814 while it was flying to Delhi from Kathmandu in Nepal. Rakesh Balwal, IPS, who was heading the Jammu and Kashmir branch of National Investigation Agency (NIA), had been given the task of probing the Pulwama blast.
After the investigations, it was found that other than these two named above, several other people had played a part in the Pulwama blast. These included Sameer Ahmed Dar aka Hanjila Jihadi (a cousin of Adil Ahmad Dar), Mohammad Ismail Alvi alias Saifullah, Ashiq Ahmed Nengroo, Ammar Alvi (Umar Farooq’s uncle), Noor Mohammed Tantray alias Noor Trali and Insha Jan.
Bilateral relations between India and Pakistan have not returned to pre-Pulwama blast level till date despite several attempts by the latter to normalise ties. Air strikes on Balakot, deep inside Pakistan, carried out on February 26, 1019, within a fortnight of the Pulwama blast, led to whole leadership of various terrorist groups being forced to go underground by Pakistan ISI then headed by Lt Gen Asim Munir, who is now Pakistan Army chief.
Recently, General Asim Munir spoke at a public function and denied that any Pakistani terrorists were operating on Indian soil. He was responding to his Indian counterpart General Upendra Dwivedi’s remarks made a month ago regarding Pakistani terrorists. Terming Pakistan as “epicentre of terrorism”, General Dwivedi had said that 80 per cent of terrorists active in Jammu and Kashmir are Pakistanis. He was speaking at his annual Army Day press conference on January 13 in Delhi.
Fast forward to February 12, 2025, when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted near Line of Control (LoC) in the Akhnoor sector was detonated targeting some Indian troops who were patrolling the area. The impact of the IED led to two fatal casualties and injuries to another soldier. The fallen duo, Captain Karamjit Singh Bakshi of Ranchi in Jharkhand, and Naik Mukesh Singh Manhas, of Samba, were killed on Tuesday when they were on patrolling duty near a forward post. They were grievously injured when an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) planted by saboteurs from across the border exploded. Captain Bakshi and Naik Manhas were both scheduled to get married in the month of April as their engagements had been finalised.
“Every perpetrator and supporter of terrorism must pay the price. We need to equip ourselves with credible intelligence and act effectively to neutralise the terrorists and ensure the security of citizens. We must be prepared for conventional as well as non-conventional threats,” Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha said in Jammu on Thursday.
In the Union Territory (UT) of Jammu & Kashmir, stronger measures are needed to protect our borders, LG Sinha said while presiding over a meeting of the senior state police officials.
“We must strengthen border security against asymmetric threats due to porous borders with riverines and difficult mountain ranges and all the security agencies must work together to provide necessary back-up support,” LG Sinha observed.
Sinha also called for strengthening the legal framework to deal with terror propagandists and strengthening of police establishment at local level for modern and efficient policing. He stressed that the focus should now be on completely “wiping out terrorism from Jammu Division’’.
Sinha said: “We should not even have remnants of terrorism in the Jammu region. Take effective steps to wipe out terrorism and ensure complete dismantling of the infrastructure and local support of terrorism.” He said the state police officials should take strongest possible action against those providing logistical and financial support to terrorism.
“Make sure that acts of individuals or groups trying to create fear in the society are termed as terrorist action and they should be punished,” he stressed.
Director General of J&K Police Nalin Prabhat, IG Jammu B S Tuti, some ADGPs and other senior state police officials attended the meeting. A similar meeting had been held yesterday in Srinagar to review the security situation. In both Srinagar and Jammu meetings, only the state police officials were present.
Due to the peculiar situation prevailing in J&K for the past several decades, the security, both internal and on borders, is looked after by the Army, the CRPF, the BSF and many intelligence agencies, besides the state police. In the UT, the state police not only has a role in maintaining law and order by also plays a very pivotal role against terrorism.
It bears mention here that during the past one week or so, at least four incidents of cross-border firing and terrorism have been reported.
