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Grave challenge

THE HORRIFIC TERRORIST attack on Amarnath pilgrims in a camp at Nunwan (near Pahalgam) in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday that has left nine persons dead and over 30 others injured, condemnable as it is as much for its brutality as for its cowardliness, unmistakably points to some serious security lapses. Given the track-record especially of the notorious jehadi groups such as the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad that have a vicious trait of picking on soft targets like the pilgrims trekking annually to the famous cave shrine, it was only expected that the extremist elements, who have become very desperate in the new context of the global anti-terror campaign, would go all out to try and disrupt the Yatra by mounting such heinous attacks this year too. An added `compulsion' this time around for these subversive forces to pursue their nefarious activities is of course the elections to the State Assembly scheduled to begin in two weeks from now, a democratic event which the world's major powers see as holding the key to a resolution of the Kashmir tangle. And precisely for that reason, the jehadi groups would want to scuttle the process through terror strikes. Therefore, to say that Tuesday's attack is linked to the Assembly poll is to stress the obvious.

The disturbing aspect of the Nunwan episode is not so much the attack itself — because there can be no absolutely fail-proof preventive mechanism against determined suicide assaults — as the fact that one of the three militants reportedly involved in the operation could penetrate the first two tiers of the three-tier security ring. That the terrorist who thus managed to sneak into the camp and inflict the damage was ultimately gunned down by the security guards is of course some consolation. The ease with which the terrorists could carry out the operation has exposed the vulnerability of the Amarnath Yatra-related security system and, in a way, rebuffed official claims on this score. If, as media reports suggest, it is indeed true that hard intelligence was made available some four days ago to the security personnel about an imminent fidayeen attack by a three-member squad, then there is a clear case of negligence, if not dereliction of duty. The administration in general and those in the higher echelons of the security apparatus in particular would need to do a lot of explaining about what happened on Tuesday at the Nunwan camp. In fact, the first warnings of the militants' intention had come even on July 30 when two pilgrims were killed following a grenade attack on a jeep near Anantnag.

In the immediate context, with the Amarnath pilgrimage season still to run its course, the civil administration and the security establishment have their task cut out; it relates to ensuring better coordination between the intelligence and operational wings — a critical but highly elusive factor — and possibly some fine-tuning of various other sub-systems of the security mechanism. As the election process gets under way, the terrorist elements, whatever be the banner under which they operate, are bound to step up their murderous attacks choosing the targets in a manner calculated to undermine the democratic exercise. Countering such a heightened threat will, in practical terms, require providing adequate security to ensure the personal safety of contestants, poll officials, key political leaders and so on and, more importantly, to create an atmosphere where the voters would feel free to exercise their franchise, without fear of intimidation or coercion. The task, by any reckoning, is formidable. But the Centre and the State Government can ill-afford to fail in meeting the challenge because the stakes for the nation in the elections are too critical to be lost to the diabolical designs of the terrorist groups.

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