Body Cam for Body Cam

HARDLY HAD THE body bags from the CRPF bus targeted by a suicide bomber in 2019 reached different parts of India when the mastermind, Umar Farooq, sent a mes­sage to his uncle Rouf Asgar, the operational head of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). Nineteen years ago, the tanzeem (organisation) had been formed by Farooq’s uncle Masood Azhar after his release from a prison in Jammu in exchange of the passengers of the hijacked IC-814 plane. Farooq asked for permission to launch another attack, but this time it was denied. In an audio message later recovered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) from Farooq’s phone, Asgar sent his nephew a word of caution: The loss should be only as much as the dushman (enemy) can bear. Jaish had been expecting fewer ca­sualties than what the suicide bomber caused. Asgar had wanted the dead count to be ‘optimal’ enough to create headlines and at the same time not big enough to provoke an Indian response. The actual number, 40, caused such uproar in India that the Modi government was forced to retaliate through the Balakot strike.

Six years later, not very far from the Pulwama site, gunmen, who are essentially pitbulls of the Pakistani military establishment, singled out Hindu tourists from mainland In­dia, executing them one by one at leisure, leaving no doubt that this time the number of casualties was not by chance but by design. The spot where the massacre took place had been carefully chosen. Since de­cades, whenever someone mentions Kashmir, the first image or name it conjures up is that of Pahalgam. It is also the base camp for the Amarnath pilgrimage, about to begin in two months, the registration for which already started earlier this month.

Just days before the massacre, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir had upped the ante by affirming that Paki­stan was created because civilisationally Muslims were differ­ent from Hindus. Days later, his mercenaries inside Kashmir had swooped down from their hiding place in the forest on innocent tourists in a meadow locally called mini-Switzerland, identifying them by their inability to recite the Kalma and shooting most of them in the head. They carried body cams to record their act. In due course, that footage will be released, inflicting yet another wound on the deepest recesses of the collective Indian psyche. Because India has failed to create a deterrent, it has no choice but to call its weakness resilience.

It is early in the day to say whether India has changed its mindset, despite the diplomatic measures New Delhi took a day after the car­nage at Pahalgam; it is too soon to say that even with the hindsight of the Balakot strike. That is because the response to Pahalgam must be several notches up from the rather ambiguous optics of Balakot.

But first, back to Kashmir Valley. In 15 minutes, the entire gain amassed in Kashmir since the fateful day of August 5, 2019 has come to naught. In the last six years, Indian security forces had built a robust grid, disabling the comfort with which terrorists and their ecosystem would operate in Kashmir. That there is the presence of foreign (that is, Pakistani) terrorists in Kashmir, is known to all. In the Valley, they have a presence in both South and North Kashmir. In the last few years, since they could not achieve much in the Val­ley, Pakistan has strategically spread them out to parts of Jammu, resulting in several attacks on security forces and civilians. As secu­rity agencies got busy in dealing with that, they have now struck in Kashmir, carrying out the most audacious attack since the 2001 attack on the state Assembly (setting aside the Pulwama attack).

The nomenclature, whether it is Lashkar or Jaish, doesn’t mat­ter. That is just an illusion. The only thing to keep in mind is that the highly trained terrorists come to Jammu & Kashmir with the blessing of the Pakistani military establishment. They are trained in the best facilities in Pakistan (and Afghanistan), and have in the last few years learnt to minimise their contact with civilians to avoid detection. They only use a few trusted local terrorists who guide them. It is the local net­work that helps them move around and identify potential targets like Pul­wama and Pahalgam.

There are preliminary indications that the massacre may have been ex­ecuted by a group of terrorists which moved from Jammu’s Poonch region through the Pir Panjal mountain range sometime last year. The commander of this group is believed to be a Pakistani terrorist called Sulaiman. The other two Pakistanis with him are Yasir and Musa. They were helped by a local terrorist, Junaid Ramzan. Ramzan was involved in the attack at Sonamarg tunnel in the Valley in October last year— and was later killed in December in an encounter on the outskirts of Srinagar. They are now being helped by a local terrorist whom the police have identified as Adil Hussain Thoker. A highly placed source in the police though said that nothing “solid” was known so far about the perpetrators of the Pahalgam carnage. “The sketches, etc you see are part of perception management that security agen­cies resort to so that the pressure is off their back,” he said.

Intelligence circles are abuzz with how there was “input” about terrorists carrying out a big attack before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Jammu on April 19. The visit was post­poned. There is no clarity on why it was postponed, but if there was such an input, it clearly was not followed up with adequate security measures at popular tourist destinations like Pahalgam.

Or did complacency set in on the assumption that terrorists were unlikely to target tourists? The result is in front of us. Terrorists kept on shooting without any hindrance and melted away. Car­rying out operations hours afterwards as expected has yielded no results—they have moved away from the area.

At some point, a few questions need to be asked. The Pakistan army chief’s rant should have been examined carefully, more so because in February a huge gathering held in Pakistan’s Rawalkot was attended by senior leaders from Jaish and Lashkar, includ­ing Masood Azhar’s brother, Talha Saif. The need for jihad was evoked repeatedly. But the agencies failed to join the dots. That the Pahalgam massacre is a result of intelligence failure is fairly estab­lished. But are we fixing responsibility for this? Also, if terrorists are able to freely move from one region to another, it also tells us that simple security domination in the Valley is not enough. Mul­tiple sightings of foreign terrorists also indicate that infiltration is taking place, especially along the Punjab-Jammu axis along the international border with Pakistan. The mastermind of Pulwama, Umar Farooq, had entered through the same axis in April 2018. He was helped by a Jaish associate, Ashiq Ahmed Nengroo, who, the NIA found later, had facilitated the arrival of 33 Jaish terrorists in Kashmir through seven trips made in his truck to Punjab and Jammu. Two months before Pulwama, he quietly slipped into Pakistan along the same axis with his wife and children, using one of the tunnels used by Pakistan to facilitate infiltration of terror­ists. Twenty minutes after making it to Pakistan, he called one of his associates and told him that he was now having tea with his Pakistani handlers.

Despite several warnings, this route is still active.

Now that Pahalgam has happened, much like Pulwama and Mumbai (attack), what are India’s options? The anger among Indians is such that measures like putting the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in abeyance is not going to cut ice. In due time, much like Umar Farooq and many others like him, Sulaiman and Yasir and Musa will also be killed. But that will hardly mat­ter to Pakistan. There are tens of thousands of Kasabs in their madrasas willing to go through military training and then being sent to fight the war against the ‘infidels’. Even a strike on an odd bunker or a terrorist launch pad won’t mean anything beyond a little symbolism. India now needs to re­spond in a way which will hit at the heart of the Pakistan Military Inc. In encounters in Kashmir Valley, the security forces have now adopted more or less a boilerplate model of operation. In most cases, terror­ists hide in a building that is then cordoned off and then the forces go for the kill. The situation changes in the Jammu region where they have to engage with terrorists in forest areas. On April 24, as security forces engaged with a group of terrorists hiding in Udhampur (Jammu), a special forces soldier was killed whileno damage was inflicted on terrorists. Action on external soil would be even more challenging. But India’s military response, whenever it comes, must be clear and for everyone to see. It has to remember that Pakistan needs to face the shame of visible damage; after all, it is a country that refused to accept its own soldiers killed by the Indian Army during the 1999 Kargil intrusion.

Currently, apart from some diplomatic measures, there seems to be too much focus on managing the optics. Even before an op­eration has begun, images of it are circulated in the media. Apart from a strong statement by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Modi also spoke at an event in Bihar—in English, more to portray domestically that he is sending a message to the international community that some action is imminent. “We will pursue them (terrorists and their backers) to the ends of the Earth,” he said.

That India may, and for their body cam, this time we must have our own to show. Beyond that, India must not stick to a single response. Fighting a war against an enemy like Pakistan needs an enduring strategic vision in continuum that will have to go miles ahead of the image of the home minister boarding an aircraft for Kashmir with a decisive gait.

India-Pakistan relationsKashmirLethporaPahalgamPakistanPakistan’s army chief Asim MunirPulwama attackSrinagarterror attack