CHALLENGING TASK ;Amarnath Yatra: SFs on tenterhooks ahead of Burhan’s death anniversary

Special Correspondent
JAMMU: While the Kashmir Valley is back to normalcy, except for few districts, yet the security forces are on tenterhooks ahead of annual Shri Amarnath pilgrimage, starting from June 29, as death anniversary of Hizbul Mujaheedin terrorist Burhan Wani falls in between, which may erupt fresh clashes in the coming days.
Burhan Wani was eliminated in a joint operation of Police and the Army on July 8, 2016 in south Kashmir’s Bumdoora village in Kokernag area following which Kashmir was on boil that left nearly 100 dead and thousands injured including the security personnel. With February 9 being observed as death anniversary of Muhammed Afzal Guru, who was hanged for his role in the Parliament attack, February 11 is death anniversary of JKLF founder Maqbool Bhat but now July 8, the death anniversary of terrorist Burhan Wani has also been added to the calendar of the separatists thus provoking the stone pelters and the youth in Kashmir to play a spoilsport.
“As the date falls in the midst of the Amarnath yatra season, security forces apprehend that another date has been added to the calendar, which may trigger fresh protests and violence in the Valley,” top intelligence sources here said.
As this year’s Yatra has been cut short by 8 days and the 40-day pilgrimage will commence from June 29, a month after Hizbul terrorist Sabzar Bhat’s death and about a week before Burhan Wani’s death anniversary.
“Over 27,000 security personnel will be deployed to secure this year’s yatra and new strategies have also been chalked out to ensure that the annual feature does not get affected,” sources said adding that all measures have to be taken to prevent any kind of untoward incident.
They further said that situation is already volatile in the Valley and holding smooth and incident-free Amarnath yatra is a big challenge ahead but with Wani’s death anniversary falling in between, it is going to get tougher and will be a challenging task for the security forces.
“We have to be more attentive and alert and strategically have to diffuse any tension if breaks out during the yatra because the prevailing normalcy can be taken as ‘lull before storm’ and the anti-nationals, might have gone into hibernation ahead of holy yatra,” sources said.
“Not only from the terrorists but threats are looming large too from the stone pelters and they have to be handled cautiously to organise the yatra smoothly but still we cannot rule out fresh protests ahead of Burhan Wani’s anniversary,” sources said.
As per J&K Police records, among the 282 terrorists active in the Valley, 112 are from south Kashmir.
“Out of 112 terrorists, 99 are “local” and some yet have to declare their affiliation and new recruitment is being reported almost every week,” they said.
Sources however, said that days after the killing of Sabzar Bhat, a batch of 27 terrorists have been trained by Hizbul Mujahideen, who are awaiting to infiltrate into Indian Territory to create more unrest in Jammu and Kashmir.
Meanwhile, an image of the latest batch of terrorists reportedly being trained by Hizbul Mujahideen at a camp in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Muzaffarabad was also released recently on the social media.