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'Terrorist designs will be defeated'

By Our Staff Reporter

Jammu July 26. The Jammu and Kashmir Governor, S.K. Sinha has said that the designs of the terrorists, of targeting places of worship and security establishments, will be defeated at all costs.

Talking to mediapersons at the Raj Bhavan here last evening, Mr. Sinha said, "we have drawn appropriate lessons from the two attacks on Army camps and another on Vaishnodevi pilgrims and new strategies are being devised to face such situations in a more effective manner". "The incidents (attacks) do have lessons for us for revising our strategy in such a way that in future security forces can ensure minimum losses on their side but inflict maximum causalities on the terrorists."

In a long-drawn proxy war such incidents could not be totally prevented, he said adding "whenever such incidents take place we should try and analyse what went wrong and see how we can plug the gap, if any, in the security setup". "Our Army and security forces are far superior to the terrorists and can deal them a crushing blow." The Army's initial reaction at the Tanda camp was satisfactory as two terrorists were eliminated in a short time. Later, a holed-up terrorist managed to blow himself up an injured a few top officers which was not so good, the Governor said.

More intensified searches should have been conducted and the area cleared of wild grass to locate the hiding terrorist, he said. The troops' belief that the terrorist might have escaped was wrong as he had come prepared to die, not to escape. These incidents, he said, had taught the security forces to be extra vigilant while dealing with the fidayeen (suicide squads).

On two Army Generals visiting the Tanda camp together, he said, "the Indian Army has a tradition of Generals fighting on the front and not from their Headquarters. So there is nothing wrong in two Generals going to Tanda together." "I don't think criticism of such kind is justified." Whenever a peace initiative is launched, such incidents occur in a bid to derail it, but still there are some positives, the Governor said. "Tourism is picking up in the Kashmir Valley. We had the Kheer Bhawani Yatra without any incident which shows that there is a general sort of improvement in the Valley. Whenever a VVIP comes or some movement towards peace takes place, people with vested interests start creating hurdles. But we will not allow such things to take place and will carry forward the peace process," he asserted.

On his visit to Katra as well as the Tanda camp, the Governor said that he had gone there primarily to see for himself the situation on the ground and added that he did not believe in monitoring the situation from the "ivory tower" of the Raj Bhavan. "Unless you realise ground realities you cannot get ideas for devising new strategies. I went to both the places and realised that the attacks have failed to deter the people," he said.

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