The hot pursuit followed by security forces has brought positive dividends in Jammu and Kashmir as far as counter insurgency operations are concerned. The targeted approach has brought a shift in public response which was visible in Tral operations where security forces eliminated five Pak terrorists of which three were local terrorist belonging to the new floated outfit of Zakir Musa. Musa, a former Hizbul Mujahideen militant had left the militant outfit al-Qaeda after he was rebuffed over his threat to behead Hurriyat leaders for terming Kashmir’s struggle a secular movement. The encounter took place two days after the army killed five terrorists in Machil sector of Jammu and Kashmir. On August 7, an infiltration bid was foiled and huge quantity of arms and ammunition was recovered along with ration and medicines with Pakistani markings from the encounter site. Normally any burial of a terrorist evokes response in terms of protests followed by stone throwing targeting security forces and firing in the air by terrorists accompanying the burial procession. But here there was a change with hardly any public gathering and protests unlike in earlier cases. Such a shift could be because of the constant pressure maintained by security agencies on the terrorist ranks and the National Investigation Agency and Enforcement Directorates raids on Hurriyat leaders probing terror funding and Hawala transactions. The NIA investigation, which began way back in May 2017 after the agency registered a preliminary inquiry into the funding of separatist leaders in the Valley, was made possible because of a dossier made of reports prepared by concerned Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) while investigating the involvement of Kashmiri youth in the burning of schools and separatist leaders in fanning the Kashmir unrest that began in July 2016 following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Muzaffar Wani. The NIA raids are seen as a way to counter pro-freedom political activities in Kashmir, even though the police has been putting both Geelani and Mirwaiz as well as several other separatist leaders under detention during their calls for strikes and protest marches.
