Opinion - Editorials

Ugly terror

THE BRUTAL TERRORIST attacks over the past few days in Jammu and Kashmir wherein innocent school girls and children were done to death marked a despicable low in the savagery and cowardliness of the subversive elements operating in the State. In fact, the militants have been on a killing spree in recent days directed at soft targets in a renewed escalation of their activity since the advent of the new coalition government headed by Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, and this is apart from the other targets they picked in pursuit of their diabolical designs. The gunning down of three children of a family last Saturday night in a Poonch village is the third major attack in as many days. On December 19, elsewhere in Rajouri district, three teenage girls were brutally killed and this act of terror is widely believed to be linked to the militants' campaign for the use of `burqa' by school girls and the threat they had held out for non-compliance, although the police have discounted any nexus between the two. The hand of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba — the two assailants killed in an encounter after the incident having been identified as belonging to that outfit — is suspected in the Poonch episode, while the dress code threat is attributed to a lesser known group called `Lashkar Jabbar'. In a situation where changing of labels has become a matter of expediency for the jehadi groups operating with inspiration and support from across the border, the precise nomenclature of the group involved in a particular incident can only be of limited relevance or significance.

What the spurt in militant activity, as indicated by these more recent killings as also the qualitatively different fidayeen attack on the famed Raghunath temple last month, highlights is the imperative of tightening the vigil and finetuning the security system, both its operational and intelligence gathering components. If all these are a part of the militants' well-known destabilisation strategy, the murder of an MLA of the Chief Minister's own People's Democratic Party is a more direct political challenge to the new Government and its determination to work for a negotiated settlement of the vexed Kashmir problem. Given the very nature of the goal the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed regime has set to achieve and the road it has taken, there are bound to be such challenges from forces that have a vested interest in keeping Jammu and Kashmir perpetually on the boil and, so, would spare no effort to frustrate or sabotage any genuine initiative towards restoring peace and normality. Attempts on political leaders or people's representatives should certainly be taken very seriously and investigated thoroughly so that the culprits are brought to justice and the right lessons drawn for upgrading the security apparatus. More important, such assaults must reinforce, not weaken, the Government's will to push ahead with its peace initiatives. Indeed the response of the Chief Minister — as also of the PDP's vice-president, Mehbooba Mufti — to the MLA's murder does signal a steeled resolve to carry forward the process of `healing touch' that has been initiated by the new regime.

On a more general level, it needs to be said that for all the rhetoric — not unoften with jingoistic overtones — one heard day in and day out about the phenomenon of `cross-border terrorism', there has been no earnest or sustained effort to put in place a clearly defined counter-strategy based on a political consensus. In fact, one wonders if the recommendations made by the special task forces set up in the wake of the Kargil conflict on crucial areas pertaining, for instance, to intelligence mechanism, internal security arrangement and border management have been acted upon in all their core aspects. The Centre's responses to major terrorist attacks have almost invariably been of a knee-jerk and bureaucratic nature by way of, say, holding strategic sessions, formulating new `action plans' and promises of coordinated functioning, with none of them making any real impact on the ground situation. The Centre must work closely with the State Government to develop a credible and long-term approach to the problem of terrorism.

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