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Volume 3, No. 6 - November 2003 << Back to formatted version

J&K: The Writing on the Barrel of the Gun

Praveen Swami
Special Correspondent, Frontline

In Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), bullets don't just bear death: they are also a medium of political communication.

In November 2002, just after Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed took office, two grenades went off outside his home on the outskirts of Srinagar. The grenades were not intended to kill, but to forcefully remind the new Chief Minister of the need to honour his party's promises of dialogue with Islamist groups and a scaling back of offensive counter-terrorism operations.

Sayeed refused, at the time, to leave his home for more secure quarters. In a grand gesture, he even brought down security barriers on Gupkar Road, home to the residence of his predecessor Farooq Abdullah as well as top functionaries of the Border Security Force, Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing. The opening of Gupkar Road, along with Sayeed's media-hyped visits to downtown Srinagar, was a visible symbol of the new 'healing touch' agenda.

Over the next months, however, the real-world limitations of the 'healing touch' became evident. Although there were some prisoner releases, their scale was nowhere near adequate to satisfy the Islamist Right, which had backed his People's Democratic Party (PDP). Unabated violence and pressure from the PDP's coalition partners also ensured that no generalised cutback in counter-terrorist operations could be realised.

Sayeed began spending increasing amounts of time outside Srinagar and, when he was present there, often chose to spend the night at the Dachigam wildlife sanctuary. This wasn't, of course, the consequence of a new interest in nature, but of blunt warnings from intelligence and police officials of the likelihood of an assassination attempt. The J&K Government also began constructing a new fortified residence for the Chief Minister on Mohammad Ali Road, which he occupied last month after vacating his family residence.

It is important, then, to consider the political meaning of the murderous October 17, 2003, Lashkar-e-Toiba (
LeT) attack on the new official residence especially prepared to shield Sayeed from such dangers. As J&K Government spokesperson Kul Bhushan Jandial has pointed out, the Chief Minister was not at home when the attack took place. In this sense, he was obviously not its target. Yet, it is profoundly unlikely that the terrorists who executed the attack would not have taken care to monitor the Chief Minister's movements - something they could have done simply by walking up and down the pavement on the busy public road that runs along his house.

It is at least possible that the attack was not intended to kill but, just as in November 2002, to send a signal. Top PDP functionaries have held meetings with senior figures of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (
HM) in recent months. One such meeting, held in late August near Pahalgam, involved the HM's central Kashmir 'commander', Abdul Rashid Pir. The meetings followed complaints by the HM, which not-so-tacitly backed the PDP's election campaign last year, that the ruling party had failed to deliver on its end of their deal. While the unpopular Special Operations Group (SOG) had been disbanded by the PDP, operations by the Army, paramilitaries and police continued apace. 205 terrorists were killed last month, a record level of success.

Soon after the Pahalgam meeting, Pir left for Pakistan, and the HM ended an undeclared truce that had commenced after the elections. On September 6, 2003, the Hizb targeted an Army convoy passing by the Parimpora Fruit Market on Srinagar's outskirts, following this attack up with a succession of similar offensive operations. Although the PDP had been calling for the inclusion of the Hizb in a political dialogue on the future of J&K, the terrorist organisation was making clear that it wanted more than mere polemical support.

Sayeed has, in the past, responded to Islamist concerns by using the limited leverage available to him. Earlier this month, for example, he called on the Union Government to replace its official interlocutor on J&K, N.N. Vohra, with someone more acceptable to the secessionists. His daughter, the PDP's star campaigner Mehbooba Mufti, has not once congratulated the security forces for successes against terrorism, and remained silent even after the elimination of the terrorist who organised the assault on Parliament House, Shahbaz Khan alias Ghazi Baba. PDP legislators and functionaries, any security official in J&K will testify, routinely call up demanding the quick release of arrested suspects.

None of this, terrorist groups are starting to realise, actually adds up to much. Caught in a coalition whose constituents cannot or will not be seen as being soft on terror, Sayeed's room for manoeuvre is extremely limited. The near-tragic attack on the Chief Minister's residence, it seems probable, was intended to provide additional incentive for Sayeed to deliver on his party's promises, whatever the consequences. Like other Chief Ministers in similar situations of crisis, Sayeed has two choices: he buckles in, or fights back. The decision he makes will shape the course of events in J&K in coming years.

Just as important, the assassination attempt should provoke introspection among policy makers in both New Delhi and Washington. The United States has been content to cajole Pakistan's military establishment to keep violence in J&K at levels that will not provoke a full-blown crisis. Although violence is, indeed, at levels marginally lower than in 2001, the assassination attempt shows that terrorism simply cannot be calibrated to avoid potentially crisis-inducing events. The Government of India, in turn, needs to work out just how it might respond to major acts of terrorism - or might find itself floundering as it did in December 2001, after the attack on Parliament House in New Delhi.

Courtesy: South Asia Terrorism Portal

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