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Forget proxy war, it’s a direct action situation in Kashmir now

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Rajeev Sharma
Rajeev SharmaJun 18, 2017 | 13:43

Forget proxy war, it’s a direct action situation in Kashmir now

What’s happening in Kashmir? The security situation in the Valley has become much worse than a proxy war unleashed by Pakistan. In many ways, it’s now more like direct action by Pakistan's intelligence establishment, wherein the local Kashmiris are being used as cannon fodder and pawns in the larger chess game to target Indian security forces.

Unfortunately, as many as 207 security personnel have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir alone in the past three years since the Modi government took over.

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Even worse is the uptick in terror attacks aimed at the Jammu and Kashmir Police which primarily comprises of local Kashmiris. The incident of June 16 in Anantnag where six cops of J&K Police were killed by Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Tayyeba in an ambush hours after the Lashkar's local commander Junaid Mattoo was killed in an eight-hour encounter with the Indian security forces, is shocking.

To drive the point home about the extent of savagery these Pakistan-backed terrorists can go to, the perpetrators disfigured the victims' faces by spraying bullets from point blank range.

The message from the Pakistan-backed terrorists is loud and clear: that local Kashmiris should keep away from security jobs, and if they don’t, they will meet the same fate. The LeT's barbaric operation in Anantnag district was not merely a revenge act in response to Mattoo's killing but also meant to demoralise the local population.

With such attacks on the J&K Police, Pakistan's terror apparatus has reversed in one stroke the good positive vibes generated by the local Kashmiris in September last year when over 5,000 Kashmiri youth defied separatist leaders' call to shun police jobs and lined up for the job of Special Police Officer (SPO) for a paltry monthly salary of Rs 6,000, or less than a hundred dollars. There are 24,000 SPOs in J&K who have now been merged into the J&K Police. Till recently, the SPO’s monthly salary used to be merely Rs 3,000!

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Significantly, the latest uptick in terror attacks against the police, paramilitary and Army personnel in Jammu and Kashmir has come weeks after a high-decibel remark from Union home minister Rajnath Singh, who had said last month that "we have come up with a permanent solution to Kashmir. The initiative has begun”. 

There has been no clarification from the Modi government what this “permanent solution” is like, what its broad parameters are and how and where has this process “begun”! On the contrary, there is increasing method in the madness of Pakistan-backed terrorists as hardly a day passes by when they don’t attack security forces in the state.

The confusion over the current security situation in the state gets confounded by political confusion. CM Mehbooba Mufti, whose People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has been ruling the state in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has been making statements stressing the need for resuming talks with Kashmiri separatists as well as Pakistan.

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Alliance partners CM Mehbooba Mufti and PM Modi have been offering opposing solutions for the Kashmir crisis. 

This is diametrically opposite of what the Modi government has been saying and doing. How can the state police and security forces fight the increasingly aggressive Pakistan-backed terrorists when the two coalition partners in the state differ so much in their fundamental political approach?

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What kind of “permanent solution” can be there when the PDP-BJP coalition is much like the two-horse-driven carriage being pulled in different directions?

Also, where is this so-called “permanent solution” being crafted? In the Prime Minister's Office (PMO)? In the ministry of home affairs? Normally, there is a standard operating procedure for taking such important decisions which impact national security – the cabinet committee on security (CCS) meets and discusses the subject threadbare. But the CCS hasn’t met on the issue of the current situation in Jammu and Kashmir, not even after Friday’s dastardly terror attack in Anantnag. 

The spike in terror attacks against security personnel is reflective of the fact that real time intelligence has virtually dried up. This in turn means that local Kashmiris continue to be alienated for whatever reasons. 

The ground situation in Kashmir can change significantly if the central and state governments were to loosen their purse strings and put money in the pockets of locals by creating more jobs. Why not create ten thousand more jobs of SPOs? Why not raise the SPO's monthly salary to at least Rs 10,000, if not more? 

If ten thousand more SPO jobs are created at an increased monthly salary of Rs 10,000, this measure alone would put an additional burden of Rs 10 crore per month or Rs 120 crore per annum, which is a peanut of an amount for India with an economy of over $2 trillion. But such a measure would go a long way in tackling the Kashmir conundrum.

What can be a better, bigger and more transparent “permanent solution” for Jammu and Kashmir than this?

Last updated: June 18, 2017 | 13:43
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