Srinagar: Ahead of the assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Army on Monday said that the infiltration attempts along the LoC are on with the militants employing a “desperate” trend by pushing in IEDs and huge cache of weapons in the state.
“The indications on the LoC are that infiltration attempts are on. But we have been able to successfully foil them till now,” General Officer Commanding of the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps, Lt Gen Subrata Saha said.
Lt Gen Saha said the number of militants “neutralized” this year was much higher than the previous year.
“129 this year as compared to 89 last year. The number of terrorists killed this year, 86, is also higher than the previous year’s 62. Even in the counter-infiltration, the number of terrorists killed have been substantially higher, it is 45,” he said.
The army commander noted that during the last one month, a “new” trend by the militants to push in more IEDs can be seen.
“The trends that we have been noticing along the Line of Control ? there has been a number of infiltration bids which have been foiled and the new trend we have noticed this time is this desperate bid to push in IEDs. It is absolutely new.
“Earlier, this month, on two occasions, four IEDs were recovered from just next to the LoC and that recovery has saved quite a catastrophic situation,” he said.
Lt Gen Saha said the army had inputs about the attempts by the militants to disrupt the assembly election process in the state slated to begin from tomorrow.
“We have inputs of different districts, different tehsils. We are working on those inputs. They are generally in line with what has been coming in the past, so we are keeping track of that trends. We are having elections in two districts and we are prepared for that. In fact I am returning from these two places.
“We are very much aware of the inputs coming in and will respond to all the challenges that will emerge,” he said.
Explaining further on the methods applied by the militants in the state, the army official stated that young boys and recycled militants are being recruited as part of their new strategy.
“The five terrorists who have been killed since the beginning of this month, in all the cases, certainly in four out of five, they were young terrorists, who were recruited recently. Secondly, if you see the kind of weapons with which they are coming, there are pistols, old snatched carbines and INSAS rifles and all.
“So, what is emerging quite clearly is that there is this tendency to push the young recruits forward to carry out such incidents, while the leadership was obviously remaining behind and the reason for (their) remaining behind is certainly because of the very robust security grid which is in place,” he said.
Lt Gen Saha said army was concerned about the militants’ strategy of using “recycled terrorists”.
“The second strategy which obviously is fallout of the first one, is to try and get recycled terrorists to throw grenades, which obviously makes the situation a little more challenging for us. All in all it is cause of concern and we are dealing with that,” he said.
The army commander said the force was conscious of the security requiems of soft targets like panches and sarpanches and would provide an environment of security to them.
“Yes certainly we are conscious of the requirement of security for the soft target and it is a responsibility which is being taken on collectively by all the security forces ? Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP), CAPF (Central Armed Paramilitary Forces), who are directly looking into the polling and poll-related activities and army is there to provide the environment of security,” he said. PTI
