HVK Archives: Hired guns
Hired guns - India Today
Harinder Baweja
()
May 4, 1998
Title: Hired guns
Author: Harinder Baweja
Publication: India Today
Date: May 4, 1998
They came armed with terror. Not with automatic Chinese assault
rifles but clubs and axes. The nearest police post from Prankote
village in Udhampur-a tiny hamlet perched at a height of 6,700 ft-
was at least 30 km away. An arduous two-day trek through rugged
terrain, just the kind mountain guerillas thrive in. And they
disappeared into the heights, only after bludgeoning 26 villagers-
the latest victims in a series of massacres aimed at intensifying
the Kashmir movement, now spear headed by foreign mercenaries.
As the mercenaries had anticipated. it was close to 48 hours
before the police post got information about the massacre that
led to more than 1,000 villagers fleeing their homes. Had it not
been for Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah's helicopter pilot, who
spotted the men in khaki trekking up a tiny pass, the police
would have taken even longer to reach Prankote. Farooq sent in
the police team in his chopper before joining in the task of
pulling out the bodies. Once again, the hand of foreign
mercenaries was evident: survivors confirmed their movements in
the area for over a month.
"Guest militants", as the foreign mercenaries are called in
Kashmir, have of late made the area their habitat. In a
significant shift, they have also extended their operations to
include both sides of the Pir Panjal range which separates the
Jammu sub-division from the Valley. Prankote, which falls in the
Rajouri-Poonch sector, is also on the route used by the
mercenaries for infiltration. From here, they move further into
Doda and Anantnag. Since last year, they have been engaging
Indian troops in the Rajouri-Poonch sector, adding a new and
dangerous dimension to the fight against the hardcore Islamic
militia.
Until last year, this sector was used more as an infiltration
route, but in recent months the mercenaries have made a concerted
attempt at setting up base here. If the killings triggered an
exodus, then it was precisely what the militants had aimed for-to
terrorise villagers into clearing the area surrounding Prankote.
The migration now gives them a free run of the affected area
spread over 300 km. It also gives them direct access to Rajouri
and Poonch, mostly inhabited by Hindus, without having to worry
about informers. As Home Minister L.K. Advani said after visiting
Prankote, "No bullets were used because the aim was to terrorise
people so that they do not return."
The villagers' unwillingness to return to their homes unless
provided with adequate security was conveyed to Congress
President Sonia Gandhi, who visited their camps. But the demand
for security too cannot be easily met. given the terrain and the
fact that tiny hamlets are spread across the mountains. The
foreign mercenaries, in fact, have over the past few months been
attacking the special police officers (SPOS) and members of the
Special Operations Group who have been manning the 60-odd pickets
that have only just been set up in Rajouri, Poonch, Doda and
Udhampur. Only last month, in an attack on one such post, three
policemen were killed and 10 SPOS injured. The intention: to
deter local police from joining the battle against militancy and
to scare villagers from providing information about their
movement.
If earlier Kupwara and Uri were popular infiltration routes, now
Rajouri and Poonch have been added to the list. What's more
worrying, as state police chief Gurbachan Jagat puts it, is that
besides infiltration increasing daily, most of those coming in
are foreign mercenaries. Not only have they increased in sheer
numbers-intelligence agencies estimate that at least 400 crossed
in from the Jammu sector alone in 1997 as compared to 100 in 1996-
their composition too has changed. Says Jagat, "Radio intercepts
indicate that ex-army men are coming in from Pakistan." Kashmiri
militants having taken a back seat following criminalisation of
the movement, Pakistan is running the conflict through foreigners
who prefer the mountains and are careful about not alienating the
locals. Unlike the Kashmiri militants, the mercenaries pay for
their food and often hire locals to cart their ration supplies.
Leading the gradual shift from the battle for azadi to a pan-
Islamic jehad are highly-motivated Afghans and Pakistanis, bred
on verses from the Koran and fired by the concept of Ummah (an
Islamic world without frontiers). Their increasing number has
also intensified their pitched battles with the Indian troops,
resulting in the security forces suffering more casualties than
they did earlier. Their motivation and fire-power was evident
last week in Aagam near Shopian, where the encounter lasted over
72 hours, resulting in casualties on both sides. Villagers who
were forced to move out of the area returned to find 60 houses
destroyed. "They (the foreign mercenaries) are our enemies and
have no business being here, " said Major-Gen R.K. Koushal after
the encounter.
But the enemy, as even Farooq concedes, has a larger design:
communalisation. Prankote was the latest example, and so was the
killing of 23 Pandits in Ganderbal, the chief minister's
constituency, on January 26. Coupled with the threat of
communalisation is the fact that the army has not been able to
plug the border effectively. As Farooq said, in a bid to calm
tempers, "The enemy lies across the border. We will see more such
killings if the troops fail to check infiltration. Across the
border, the Nawaz Sharif government is making its support to the
foreign mercenaries blatantly evident. Last week, Mushahid
Hussain, information advisor to Sharif, visited the Markaz Dawa
wal Irshad (centre for preaching)-and also the headquarters of
the militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group-in Muridke, 30 km north of
Lahore, where he praised the efforts of the "holy warriors".
The lack of coordination between the various agencies involved in
counter-insurgency operations has only helped "Allah's army". In
Prankote, the Border Security Force failed to act on information
provided by the local police, which gave detailed intelligence on
two vital aspects: that the foreigners were roaming around the
area for over three weeks and that migration of villagers had
begun-even before the killings.
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