It was a likely goal of the extremists across the border to reignite international interest in Kashmir in an effort to embarrass India
The political situation in the Kashmir Valley has been relatively calm in recent times, affording greater economic and social freedoms to the people of the state. Day-to-day life is no longer being held hostage to terrorist violence erupting in different parts of the sensitive region, and this is deemed to be the big change in Kashmir.
Considering this, the terrorist attack on an Army convoy in Srinagar on Monday that killed eight soldiers and wounded about a dozen comes as a nasty surprise.
This attack was preceded by another instance of violence in the heart of the city only two days earlier. It is noteworthy that the attack on the Army convoy was just a day ahead of the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to Srinagar. In the normal course, additional security measures are adopted at such times.
There is no reason to believe that this drill was not followed. Plainly, a chink in the armour exists. This has to be plugged, the right questions asked and accountability fixed. It is hard to imagine that Hizbul Mujahideen, which has claimed responsibility for the attack, is now in a position to carry out a strike of this nature, particularly when security arrangements are tight. The back of this outfit, which draws inspiration from Pakistan, was broken some years ago.
It is, therefore, likely that a special-purpose module, possibly of a group like Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, was infiltrated from across the Line of Control for Monday’s attack. Of late there have been frequent incidents of Pakistani soldiers giving covering fire to infiltrating terrorists. US secretary of state John Kerry was in the Indian capital on Monday. There can be little doubt that the attack was also meant to impress the Americans and gain international mileage.
For some years, the Kashmir militancy has been on the margins. It was a likely goal of the extremists and their minders across the border to reignite international interest in Kashmir in an effort to embarrass India at a time when this country has raised the stakes in Afghanistan, to Pakistan’s discomfiture.
The carefully-crafted attack on Monday should remove any sense of complacency among the political class. The discussion on lifting the AFSPA from Kashmir, or at least from Srinagar, as some have proposed, clearly looks premature in the light of recent events. The annual Amarnath yatra, which is to commence in a few days, will now necessarily have to be given extra protection. The standard bandh calls given by some Hurriyat elements, who routinely carry out instructions from external agencies, cannot be taken seriously. But the government would do well to engage the non-secessionist parties without sensationalising what has just happened.