The threat is old, but it is becoming sharper and more dangerous. The Pulwama attack brought out many fault lines in the system. There also are countless failures of and the bigger problem is that the traditional tendency of overlooking the real problems for the manufactured ones is making things more complex.
The whole Indian nation was outraged over the February 14th attack that has been listed as the deadliest assault on security forces since 1990 when the armed militancy erupted in Kashmir. A suicide bomber from Pulwama blew himself up in the middle of CRPF convoy at Lethpora few kms away from Srinagar on the highway and gave birth to a new idea of the suicide bombings. He was the first suicide bomber who appeared on the scene before his death after the April 2000 strike at Batwara gate of Badami Bagh cantonment . This is not the revival of the idea of suicide bombing, but heralding of new era of such strikes that are popular with the violent groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. This is not imagination, the fear of its visiting Kashmir again is real.
By all means, it was an extraordinarily audacious attack. It had its own dimensions that cannot be assessed in the closed room TV studios from where the battle lines and contours of the next Indo-Pak war are being planned and executed with a little or perhaps no understanding of the situation on the ground in Jammu and Kashmir. Then there are others who have become treasure trove of all the information about the attack, how it happened and what all is going to happen. Till the attack took place, all of them were clueless.
But certain things are very clear: the attack must have been planned weeks ahead of the actual act of horrible violence, the boy must have been prepared for such an attack glorifying it as the ultimate act that he could commit. The component of the logistics and execution of the attack was not purely local.
Jaish owned the responsibility with a purpose – that it was capable of launching the attacks of this magnitude on Kashmir soil with the local recruits. It was display of its reach and crude power.
And it is also a universally known fact that the local youth have been joining the ranks of militant outfits and fighting security forces, killing soldiers and also getting killed at their hands. This phenomenon is more pronounced and visible since 2016 following the killing of the militant commander Burhan Wani.
A crowd of Kashmir experts has sprouted in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack and they have their own suggestions, how to deal with those behind the attack irrespective of their location in the Valley or across the borders . These experts have an extraordinary talent of connecting dots of militancy, its dimensions and proffering the advice what needs to be done. These experts are drawn from think tanks, retired army generals, and `I know all’ political pundits and journalists. It is a mental torture to hear them for the only contribution they make is to germinate a narrative of hate mongering. In short, they advance absurd theories that have no connect with the situation on the ground.
What happened after the attack needs to be taken seriously. There is an imminent threat of breakdown of the centuries-old relationship between the people’s of different regions in Jammu and Kashmir. The relations were under strain after what had happened in 1990s, but those were manifested in the crude form in 2008 when nobody understood the conspiracy that ignited flames in the two major regions of the state and incited communal passions. Somehow the matters were resolved, agitations were given a break, but the hard feelings continued to simmer.
Expression of outrage over the Pulwama attack is understandable, but those protesting against the attack have deflected the attention from the alarming dimensions of the highway assault on the CRPF personnel to new fault lines in this communally sensitive state which is a convenient pawn in the hands of the forces that have their own agenda.
J&K cannot afford and it should not divide itself on the communal lines. And those who think that the division of this sort is the solution to the crisis are playing into the hands of those who want exactly this to happen. No words would heal the wounds that have been inflicted in the recent days whether this is the attack or its aftermath. The administration would be back in ante-rooms once calm returns to streets, but will that help calm fear, anxiety and put a full stop to the attacks like the one witnessed in Pulwama.. Not sure at all.
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