Terror redux in Sopore

Just before the crack of dawn on 23 February, an army Special Forces squad led by a young Captain zeroed in on a house in a densely congested locality in Sopore. The operation in Chinkipora, astride the Sopore-Bandipora road in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district was launched on receipt of specific information about the presence of two LeT terrorists in the locality. However, as it turned out the squad was met with a hail of bullets and grenades from more than five terrorists holed up in the house. In the exchange of fire that followed, one trooper was dead and two injured. The Captain was reportedly captured in an injured state and held inside the house. The terrorists refused to hand over the officer in exchange of safe passage and shot him.

As day broke out the army launched an operation to flush out the terrorists. It had to exercise caution and proceed deliberately as the body of the slain officer had to be recovered from the house where the terrorists had positioned themselves. The densely populated locality had to be cordoned off and civilians evacuated. Two terrorists were eliminated after a 13 hour long gun battle. Four army troopers including the Captain have been martyred in the operation. What is disturbing was the fact that more than five terrorists could entrench themselves in an urban locality and operate from there. So how did this situation come about?

Sopore has been a traditional hotbed of militants ever since the outbreak of insurgency in J&K. Home to firebrand separatist leaders such as Sayeed Ali Shah Gilani, it has had the lowest voting turnout in any election since 1989. In the 1990s, an army brigade had to be inducted to clear the town of militants who had claimed to have ‘liberated’ it. After the advent of fidayeen terrorism in the valley in 1999, the town has witnessed several such attacks on security force camps and civilian targets. The Sopore-Bandipora belt has been a preferred operating base of top terrorist leaders of all tanzeems active in J&K. However, since 2007 Sopore town and its adjoining belts was substantially cleared of militants with the army’s effective area domination and elimination of top commanders in surgical operations. Inability to operate firmly from Sopore proved costly to the terrorists as they were denied this transit belt from North Kashmir into other parts of the valley. Incidents of terror came down substantially all over North Kashmir.

The terrorists through the separatists then adopted a new tactic to revive terror in the apple town. A substantial number of people took to the streets during the Amarnath Land row agitations in the summer of 2008. Since then, separatist forces egged on  by their terrorist handlers have organised several demonstrations in Sopore following any allegation of human rights abuse by the security forces. They got their opportunity on 21 February 2009, when the local Rashtriya Rifles unit opened fire on a procession of devotees at Bomai village, north of Sopore town. Two civilians were killed in this incident which led to a massive uproar across the valley. The army however maintained that it had acted in self-defence after militants from within the procession or the bus which was being searched had opened fire. As the demonstrations and protests acquired momentum all over Sopore, the army relented and hauled up the men responsible for the shooting incident for inquiry. The army post at Bomai in the heart of the Zaingeer belt which links Sopore with Lolab was re-located alongside a CRPF camp on the Sopore-Kupwara road. This led to the weakening of the army’s dominance of the rural belt of Sopore leaving the field open to militants. Since then, militants from the LeT, JeM, HuM and HM managed to regroup and have started operating from there with impunity. They had managed to re-group in similar fashion in Shopian following the agitations after the death of two women in May 2009. Last year since the Bomai incident there have been several militant attacks in Sopore which left eight civilians and seven security force personnel dead. Eight militants were also eliminated in different encounters. This year so far three civilians and six security force personnel have died in militant attacks in Sopore town. The attack on the Sopore Police station on 15 January where militants fired for at least 25 minutes was reminiscent of incidents in the 1990s when militants regularly carried out such stand-off firing on paramilitary bunkers in the town. The first fidayeen attack in the valley since 2007 which took place in Srinagar on 6 January 2010 was also launched from Sopore. There have been intercepts indicating that top terrorist leaders have based themselves in the Sopore belt and are co-ordinating and pooling their resources from there. The security forces were reluctant to operate freely following the uproar after the Bomai incident and removal of the post from Bomai led to the weakening of the counterinsurgency grid in the area. It was this freedom of movement which the terrorists sought and obtained by using the agitators.

The LeT’s operations commander in the valley Abdullah Unni has survived several encounters in the past four months in Sopore town. In fact, in one such instance he had emerged from the rubble of a house in the same locality where the present encounter took place and escaped. In a similar fashion, one terrorist survived under the debris of a razed house in Chinkipora for more than 14 hours and fired at the troops who were sifting through it, killing one army jawan. This proves that more hardened and determined lot of terrorists are being pushed in by Pakistan who could carry out sensational and deadly attacks in J&K and beyond. Such groups of terrorists need to be interdicted early and prevented from establishing firm bases in the hinterland. The elimination of the two terrorists in Chinkipora  and breaking of the meeting of top commanders which was taking place there would disrupt their regrouping efforts for a while. The army had to pay a heavy price for it.

But a substantial amount of responsibility lies with the politicians especially the elected legislators from the area who should ensure that anti-national elements do not hold sway following allegations of excesses by security forces. Hartals and Intifada style stone-pelting activities have to be nipped in the bud before they prove beneficial to the militants as it did in Sopore. The government should not succumb to pressure and take steps which weaken the security forces’ dominance over an area. The shifting of the RR camp in Sopore did just that. Such moves de-moralises the troops and imposes unnecessary restraint on them which compromises the efficacy of successful counterterrorist operations. The government should stand by its forces and desist from taking hasty decisions under pressure. It should lend its support to the men in uniform who have so painstakingly turned the tide in J&K. Playing into the hands of the agitators funded and abetted from across the Line of Control could well reverse the clock again and the stone-throwers would succeed in bringing the gun culture back to the valley. It is imperative that the momentum of the gains in J&K is maintained and politicians should build on this opportunity provided by the security forces towards resolving the impasse.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the views either of the Editorial Committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).