Above: Security personnel chasing the unruly youth who are pelting stones during clashes in the Nowhatta Chowk in Srinagar. Photo: UNI
On Thursday, J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti warned that the security forces’ patience was wearing thin and if it breaks little could she do to save the stone-pelting and lynching mobs of the Valley. Her comment was in reaction to the lynching of Deputy SP Mohammad Ayub Pandit at Jamia Masjid, Nowhatta.
The DSP was doing his duty, taking pictures of people coming out of the mosque, when he was attacked on June 22. He used his service revolver to save himself, but was overpowered and beaten to death.
On June 23, India Today TV reported that India’s top security establishment had prepared a blueprint to deliver “a lethal blow to militancy in Jammu and Kashmir with a long-term plan for a lasting peace in the trouble-torn Valley.”
The report, said the television channel, had identified 258 militants from different militant outfits for what they could be calling, “Operation All-Out”.
The report has clearly mapped activity zones of these outfits and the preparation was on for a while. Now, it seems, the go-ahead had been received and the operation had started.
The channel, quoting a top official, said: “Intelligence agencies carried out a secret district-wise survey to identify militant hideouts. This strategic operation is based on meticulous planning and intelligence-gathering.”
Of the 258 identified, 130 are local militants, while as many as 128 are foreign militants. They are prime targets. As per the official, these militants “belong to different groups, such as Lashkar, Jaish, Hizbul and Al- Badr.”
As part of “Operation All-Out”, six militants have already been killed in the past two days.
Most militants belong to the LeT (136), followed by Hizbul (95) and Jaish (23).
—India Legal Bureau