Tackling J&K: Use all means, not just military

Wednesday’s brutal killing of a young Army officer, Lt. Umar Fayyaz Parray, while on home leave in Kulgam, South Kashmir, to attend a family wedding, marks a calculated escalation by the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen-led militancy that gained pace since July last year in the aftermath of militant commander Burhan Wani’s killing. In the first instance, on the government’s part, it will therefore become necessary to use all available means, including military, to block and stop the local violent elements and those that have infiltrated. The numbers of both categories have risen in the past year due to security gaps and an inexplicable lackadaisical attitude that made repeated attacks on military facilities, including a corps headquarters, possible.

The Army has gone into “seeking and engagement” mode and for the first time since 2002 “cordon and search” operations will be resumed in the Valley. The immediate focus is on the southern district, the most affected area, where the young lieutenant was kidnapped and tragically killed. He was unarmed.

But Budgam, in central Kashmir, on Srinagar’s outskirts, normally a quiet place, was also sought to be overrun by the pro-Pakistan elements. Military operations are being directed there as well. The plain truth is that all of Kashmir felt the impact of militancy-triggered protests. Normal life has been thrown out of kilter. A situation akin to the militant years of the early 1990s has come to prevail.

In such a context, ordinary people become virtual prisoners and easily succumb to militant pressures of various kinds, including being forced to participate in protest marches and stone-pelting. Of late, many have also become willing participants due to the government’s neglect and sheer disregard of their concerns.

In the absence of any attempt by the government to stay in contact with ordinary citizens in the Valley, whose distinguishing feature is that they are not pro-Pakistan, the fundamentalist outfits gained a free hand to use most of the second half of last year to seek to mobilise opinion in their favour by holding protests and stone-throwing campaigns against the security forces across Kashmir.

Repeated attacks on Army camps, snatching of weapons even from the paramilitary forces and the J&K police, and the looting of banks is a rising graph and suggests our next-door neighbour is cooking its broth, through its agents, over a slow fire. The cold-blooded killing of a young Kashmiri man, whose fault in their eyes is that he chose to don the Indian uniform as an officer, is also intended as a message for the people of Kashmir to stay away from serving in uniform.

The ball is in the government’s court to use military, social and political means to defeat the militancy, and use dialogue to wrest back the situation.