Pulwama Outrage: Is a full-blown war with Pakistan the only way left?
Amid the drizzle, smoke and the smell of burnt flesh were hanging in the air. Still.
The wreckage of the ill-fated bus, the bloodied human flesh and the dismembered parts were being collected by fellow security personnel. Still.
This was the spine-shivering scene near the saffron town of Pampore — gateway to the summer capital of Srinagar — after a major explosion that shook the security establishment and the nation alike had occured a day earlier.
In one of the deadliest attacks on security forces in Kashmir, at least 44 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed and 38 others injured when a Kashmiri suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a convoy of the paramilitary force in Lethpora area along the Srinagar-Jammu highway — some 20 miles from the city.
It was February 14, 3.26 PM.
Within the blink of an eye, the earth beneath shook as the lone suicide-attacker detonated his Mahindra Scorpio, laden with some 350 kilograms of explosives, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction.
The impact of the explosion was so huge that it could be felt even in Srinagar.
Soon after the attack, a video of the reported attacker, Adil Ahmad Dar alias Waqas Commando of the Jaish-e-Mohammed outfit, hailing from Pulwama, went viral on social media.
In the 10-minute video, the suicide bomber talks about how he joined the Jaish and why.
It was the second Fidayeen attack by the outfit in the district in the past year. On January 1, 2018, the outfit had attacked a CRPF training centre in Lethpora, leaving five personnel of the force and three militants dead.
Though Kashmir has witnessed episodes of such suicide attacks in the past too, new-age militancy in Kashmir cannot be seen through the prism of the past anymore — the expert predictions about the future sound even worse.
In December 2018, asserting that India should adopt a “clear-cut roadmap” to tackle the Kashmir issue, the state’s former DGP, K Rajendra Kumar, said the US pulling out troops from Afghanistan would have implications in the Valley and terrorist outfits may feel emboldened.
The Afghan-style attack on the CRPF convoy seems to be bringing the worst fears to life.
Alongside, Jaish founder Maulana Masood Azhar's links with the Taliban look as old as his connection to the militancy in Kashmir.
In India, Azhar's name first hogged headlines after the December 1999 hijacking of the Indian Airlines Flight IC 814, when he was released by the then-BJP-led government from jail, in return for the lives of the people who were hostage on that plane.
Arrested from Kashmir in 1994, he was finally given a flight to Kandahar — his safe home — under the Taliban regime, till he shifted back to his native Pakistan.
The very next year, his Jaish had carried out its first car-bomb attack in Kashmir.
A 17-year-old Kashmiri boy, Afaq Ahmad, detonated the explosive-laden Maruti into the headquarters of the Army’s 15 Corps, at Badami Bagh in Srinagar.
Keeping the pot boiling in Kashmir, Azhar’s moves have been intriguing. Call it a coincidence, he managed to get his way mainly during BJP regimes, right since the day of his safe flight out of Indian prison. Over the years, Azhar masterminded major terror strikes in India, including the attack on Parliament in 2001 and on the Pathankot airbase in January 2016 — he is also accused of masterminding the September 2016 Uri attack in which 18 soldiers were killed.
The Uri terrorist attack was responded to with the surgical strike on terror camps across the LoC.
In the aftermath of the strike, however, the spate of cross-border firing, infiltration bids and other similar attacks didn’t end.
Within two months of the surgical strike, there were major terror attacks.
On November 29, seven army officers, including two Major-rank officers, were killed in two separate places, Shopian and Nagrota, in Jammu and Kashmir. Within the first six months of the surgical strike alone, at least 28 security force personnel lost their lives.
In a bid to weed out militancy from Kashmir, on the other hand, the Indian Army launched Operation All Out in the summer of 2017 — but eliminating militants has only given rise to more militancy.
In February this year, as per a PTI report, the Army said as many as 191 local youths had joined various militant outfits in 2018 — that's 65 more than 2017.
The Army said that since 2016, there was a constant rise in the number of youths joining militancy. At the start of 2018, there were around 250 militants active — though at least 257 of them were killed last year, 250 are again active.
With both the surgical strike and Operation All Out having failed to give the desired results, is a full-blown war with Islamabad the only option left with New Delhi?
With Parliamentary elections around the corner, how will the unnerved right-wing party go ahead with any chest-thumping?
To teach Pakistan a lesson, which way will the Modi sarkaar now go?
In the world’s largest democracy, February 14 was supposed to be the day of love — Valentine’s Day. But in restive Kashmir, the day ended bloody-red for the families whose beloveds were travelling by the ill-fated bus, blown to pieces.
The wounds may throb with tremendous pain. But, despite the challenges, let’s also pray for peace.
There may even be slender hope.
Still.