SPEAKING on the fourth anniversary of Pulwama bombing, the Assistant Director General of Police Vijay Kumar said that among the 19 involved in the attack that killed 40 security personnel, eight have been killed and seven arrested. More importantly, the ADGP Kumar said that the number of active militants in Jammu and Kashmir has dwindled to 37, almost all of them new recruits. This is a drastic drop from the 200 militants who roamed the Valley a year or so ago. Kumar also expressed confidence that there would be no repetition of a Pulwama-like attack. He also assured people that police would protect minorities saying that the attacks were being aborted by timely action of the department.
The drastic reduction in the number of militants is the biggest change that has taken place over the last three years. This, for once, has created a distinct possibility that the militancy could very well end in the next few months or over the course of this year if there is no replenishment of the ranks in the form of local recruitment or influx from across the border. Contrary to the apprehensions, the foreign presence in the Valley’s militancy has also increasingly diminished over the years. The depleted Kashmir militancy is now mainly composed of the local youth who are untrained in armed combat and have fewer weapons to use. So, they have posed little challenge to the security forces beyond some occasional attacks on the policemen and the civilians.
The militancy in the union territory apparently looks on a shaky wicket. But it is premature and also risky to make predictions about Kashmir. The situation in Kashmir remains far too complex to lend itself to linear analysis. A case in point can be the sudden heightened violence in Jammu in recent past, which worsened the security situation in Rajouri. The militancy had all but ended in the twin districts of Poonch and Rajouri since early 2000. But since the middle of 2021, the area has witnessed a sharp resurgence in violence, led by the militants infiltrating from across the Line of Control.
In the past also this ebb and flow in militancy has continued. As the history of the past thirty years shows militancy has gone on. And it seems unlikely to die down until the corresponding local replenishment and the infiltration from across the LoC continues. That said, the coming weeks and months will be crucial as to the fate of militancy in the union territory.
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