New Delhi: Under the Mehbooba Mufti government, terror attacks have dropped this year. According to government sources, this has been made possible due to improved coordination between the different security agencies in the state.
The improved intelligence of the J&K police and the aggressive anti-insurgency operations of the Army, CRPF and the BSF have led to this success. “Having taken a vow to eliminate all terrorists in the Valley before winter, the Army now strikes preemptively based on accurate intelligence to wipe out targets. The former reluctance of the PDP to act against troublemakers in its pockets of political influence is no longer an issue,” said a security official.
2016 saw 150 terrorists being killed but 2017 may outstrip that number as 172 terror related incidents have already occurred as on July 9. It is further reported that upto 150 HizbulMujahideen may be waiting on the Pakistan border for their chance to sneak into India. However, thanks to the 4000 extra troops which were moved in to protect the AmarnathYatris, deployment on the ground has also increased and curbed infiltration to a great extent.
The Army has released a 'hit-list' of top terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. The terrorists named are local commanders of the Hizb-ulMujahideen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). "They are the ring leaders who control all other militants in Kashmir. Killing these leaders would lead to confusion and disarray among ranks. By cutting the head, the rest of the group could just fail to operate," said an Army official.
India is third in the list of countries that were most affected by terror attacks in 2016 at 927. Iraq with 2,965 terrorist attacks & Afghanistan with 1,340 terrorist attacks, were ranked first and second respectively. On average, terror attacks in India led to 0.4 deaths per attack, compared to 2.4 deaths per attack worldwide. Most of the terrorists enter under cover of the ceasefire violations of Pakistan, 449 such were recorded in 2016 which resulted in 26 killed and 182 injured. There have been 251 violations till July this year and 8 fatalities and 38 injuries were recorded.