SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 11, No. 18, November 5, 2012

INDIA	PAKISTAN

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J&K: Targeting Peace
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

As the peace in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) consolidates, the establishment in Pakistan displays increasing signs of impatience, with increasing violations of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) of 2003 in the form of artillery and small arms firing across the Line of Control (LoC) and International Border (IB), as well as urgent attempts to reach out to the separatist constituency in the State.

Despite lingering irritants , these efforts have had little impact on the positive trajectory that has been established in J&K over the past years. Terrorism-linked fatalities, which peaked at 4,507 in 2001, went below the ‘high intensity conflict’ barrier in 2007, with 777 fatalities, for the first time after 1990. In 2012, they have fallen below the three-digit level, with 86 killed (data till November 4, 2012). Security Forces (SFs) have exerted sustained pressure and have inflicted crushing blows on the militant leadership and cadres to consolidate the peace. Director General of Police Ashok Prasad, in a media interview on August 31, 2012 noted, “Around 150 militants are active all over the state, with maximum concentration in Sopore [Baramulla District] and Tral [Pulwama District] areas of Valley.” Significantly, at the peak of militancy, several thousand militants were active in J&K.

With a deepening of the peace, the Government’s attention is turning increasingly to investments, employment and a restoration of the dynamism of the economy. Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram observed, on October 8, 2012:

I think the situation has dramatically improved over the last two years. It's still some way to go and I think the State Government must address the issue of law and order very firmly. Only a very small section continues to talk about secession and freedom and that kind of thing. There is no resonance for that among the people... The people are looking to jobs, to investment, to growth, to opportunities, to goods and to services… I agree that more investment should flow into Jammu and Kashmir.

Predictably, Pakistan’s external intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), the principal patron of terrorism in the region, has come under tremendous pressure to ‘perform’, as the situation in J&K improves. Since 2008, a succession of ‘protest movements’ , styled on the intifada, have been orchestrated, peaking in 2010, when at least 110 lives were lost to street violence, but with diminishing returns thereafter. Such efforts, nevertheless, continue, though they have failed to secure any significant traction on the ground. During the intervening night of October 11 and 12, for instance, in an effort to provoke mass violence, unidentified miscreants set fire to a revered shrine associated with Hazrat Hardi Baba Reshi at Dabran village in Anantnag District. However, only the matting in the Dabran shrine was damaged. Earlier, on June 25, 2012, miscreants gutted the more than 200-year old Dastageer Sahib Shrine at Khanyar in Srinagar. Again on June 29, 2012, a shrine belonging to the Shia sect was partially gutted in a fire and a copy of the Quran allegedly desecrated at Mirgund near Srinagar. The Shrine of a revered Sufi, Baba Haneef-ud-din, at Ratsuna village in Budgam District, was gutted in a blaze on July 14, 2012. None of these incidents succeeded in sparking the wider troubles they were intended to provoke.

Efforts to send increasing number of terrorists across the border, to shore up the dwindling strength of extremists and to disrupt the prevailing peace in the State, have also been far from successful. An estimated 500 to 600 terrorists are believed to be ready to infiltrate from launch pads across the LoC, and some 2,500 terrorists are being maintained as a ready reserve at more than 42 militant camps – 17 in Pakistan and 25 in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

In order to facilitate infiltration, the Pakistani Rangers have been violating the November 2003 CFA with increasing frequency, but diminishing success. The CFA, which was aimed at halting 14 years of cross-border firing in the region that commenced in 1989 after the ‘launch’ of Pakistan backed terrorism in J&K, has witnessed 245 violations and 21 fatalities [16 SFs and five civilians] since 2009. The trend of CFA violations has been increasing over the past years, with the exception of 2011. 2012 has already witnessed at least 78 violations, according to partial data compiled by the Institute for Conflict Management.

The formal CFA, between India and Pakistan along the IB, LoC and the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) in J&K, began on the midnight of November 25, 2003. The Directors-General of Military Operations (DGMO) of India and Pakistan, in their weekly telephonic conversation, had agreed to the CFA. A joint statement of the Army Headquarters of both the countries declared,

Pursuant to the understanding between the Governments of India and Pakistan, the two DGMOs discussed the modalities of implementation of the proposal. It was mutually agreed that the ceasefire will be enforced between the two sides, along all the sectors of the IB, LoC and AGPL....

The CFA was preceded by an entente between Governments of then Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf and then Indian Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. On October 22, 2003, India had offered to Pakistan certain Confidence Building Measures, including resumption of civilian overflights that had been suspended in the aftermath of the December 13, 2001, terrorist attack on India’s Parliament. 

According to an official statement, the first CFA violation took place on January 19, 2005, when mortars were fired from across the LoC, targeting an Indian post in the Poonch sector, resulting in injuries to a girl. Officials then had claimed that the shelling may have been intended to provide cover to a group of infiltrators trying to sneak into the Indian side in the same District, of whom five had been killed a day earlier. The first fatality in Pakistani firing since the CFA, however, took place on November 25, 2007, when a soldier was killed, and another two were injured in two separate firing incidents from the Pakistani side along the LoC in the Poonch Sector. 

Another major milestone has now been established, witnessing a rising desperation on Islamabad’s part, with a civilian settlement being intentionally targeted by the Pakistan Army on October 16, 2012. A Pakistan Army unit opened mortar firing at the Chrundra village, hardly 100 meters from the LoC in the Uri Sector of Baramulla District, at around 10:30am on October 16, 2012. One of the shells fell on a civilian residence, killing three civilians – Mohammad Liaquat (15), Mohammad Shafiq (32) and Shaheena (20). The firing stopped at 12:30 pm to allow local villagers to collect the dead bodies (locals using megaphones of two mosques in the village had reportedly appealed to the Pakistani Army to stop firing to allow them to collect the bodies), but resumed in the evening and continued intermittently throughout the night. The guns fell silent only the next day.  

Claiming that the firing was intentionally targeted at civilians, the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Baramulla based 19^th Division, Major General Bipin Rawat argued, “Pakistani troops can't miss the target since they can see the houses and people of the village through the naked eye… Charunda villagers don't allow any such designs [of infiltration] of the Pakistani troops to succeed and that is the reason for targeting the civilians.” The Pakistani troops are hardly 100 meters away from the village and surround it from three sides.  

Civilian concentrations have suffered shelling from the Pakistan side in the past as well. In recent incidents, for instance, on October 1, 2012, a couple was injured when Pakistani Rangers opened fire directly at the Chalariyan village, on the IB, near Chechwal in Samba sector. In this case, however, the Rangers were targeting Border Security Force (BSF) troopers, besides men and machinery engaged in uncovering the exit point of a 540 meters long underground tunnel dug from the Pakistani side into Indian territory in the Chechwal area. A farmer had detected the tunnel on July 27, 2012, when the land caved in at three straight points in his fields.   

Earlier, on August 17, 2012, a Pakistan Army unit had opened fire towards the forward village of Abdullian in the R.S. Pura Sector of Jammu District. A large number of villagers, who were working in their fields, took shelter in underground bunkers built during the earlier years of exchange of fire. Similarly, on August 15, 2012, the forward village of Pansar in the Samba Sector faced a similar situation. It was on June 21, 2010, for the first time after the 2003 CFA, that bullets fired by Pakistani Rangers hit three houses in the forward village of Abdullian in the R. S. Pura sector, wounding two, and killing some cattle. A day earlier, two porters had been killed and two troopers injured, when Pakistani troops had opened fire on Indian posts in the Machhil Sector of Kupwara District. The firing, however, was directed towards a SFs’ post, and not a civilian settlement.  

While Pakistan attempts to increase pressure along the border, J&K is still some distance from complete normalcy. On October 14, 2012, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde noted that the Centre could not risk the withdrawal of the Armed Force Special Powers Act (AFSPA) from State: “There is marked improvement in the security situation in the State. With further improvements, AFSPA can be revoked partially, but it wouldn't be wise to take any chances at the moment. When such a situation arrives it will be withdrawn from the entire State.” In a grim reminder of the uncertain ground situation, Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) terrorists attacked an Army convoy in Srinagar, at the bypass near the Srinagar Railway Station, in the evening of October 19, 2012. While fleeing through a nearby hotel, they fired at the staff, killing one and injuring another two. One of the injured hotel staffers died later.  

The grassroots administration also continues to be targeted. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has, of course, attempted to downplay the media frenzy over the reported mass resignation of Panchayat (village level local self Governmnet institution) members under terrorist threats, noting, “Only 52 elected representatives have actually submitted written resignations, in a formal manner, to the Block Development Officer. Everybody else has done it in a newspaper or standing up in a mosque. And let’s face it, that doesn’t count.” However, when asked about the total number of ‘informal resignations’ of panchayat members, the Chief Minister stated, “900 plus” out of a total of 33,849 panchayat members in J&K.  

According to the Police, some 18 youth from the State have joined different terrorist groups during 2012, most of them going to the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) or LeT, the two key outfits still operating in the State. However, unconfirmed reports put the number of Kashmiri youth who have taken up gun in the past one year at more than 40. 

In a further effort to stir up trouble, reports indicate that Pakistan is planning to invite various overground separatist factions in J&K to Islamabad for ‘talks’, in December 2012. Similar visits had also been organized for the separatist leadership in 2008, and quickly resulted in an escalation of the street protests over the Amarnath Land Allocation controversy, and recurrent street mobilization over a range of ‘issues’ thereafter. 

Islamabad’s frustration over the strengthening peace in J&K is increasingly evident, even as Pakistan’s efforts to capitalize on residual irritants continue. The rise in CFA violations are an index of the continuing Pakistani intent to keep the troubles in J&K alive, despite the tremendous reverses Pakistani proxy terrorist formations have suffered over the past years, and the enveloping disenchantment with the Pakistani cause even among the hard core of the separatist constituency in the State.

PAKISTAN

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An Epidemic of Extortion
Ambreen Agha
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

Pakistan’s business community has been plagued by an acute menace of extortion backed by terrorist groups, in Sindh, Punjab and, more recently, the tribal areas, though the scale differs in each Province. The worst hit is Karachi, the capital of Sindh and the financial capital of the country, followed by Punjab. The extortion networks have penetrated deep into the system with multiple overlaps of various terrorist, criminal and political organisations, and little hope for relief to the beleaguered target communities.  

On October 23, 2012, the Sindh Government, Police and Rangers appeared in the Supreme Court to account for their annual performance with respect to violence in Karachi in the summers of 2011. During the hearing of the case, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, who headed the five-member bench in Karachi, observed that the menace of extortion had increased to such an extent that areas have been divided between groups. Further, “no-go” areas had been established on a political basis—a political worker of one party could not go into another’s ‘territory’. Justice Jamali noted, further, that increasing numbers of strikes and extortion incidents were occurring, in which traders were being targeted, and that no trader or industrialist was safe. There was hardly anyone outside the extortion net.  

The court order states,

"[We] Observe that violence in Karachi during the current year and in the past is not ethnic alone but it is also a turf war between different groups having economic, socio-political interest to strengthen their position/aggrandizement, based on the phenomenon of tit for tat with political, moral and financial support or endorsement of the political parties who are claiming their representation on behalf of the public of Karachi... there are criminals who have succeeded in making their ways in political parties notwithstanding whether they are components or non-components of Government, and are getting political and financial support allegedly from such parties...

...recent violence in Karachi represents unimaginable brutalities, bloodshed, kidnapping and throwing away dead bodies... receiving bhatta (extortion money) to strengthen the ranks of one group against the other; grabbing land; drug mafia, etc., destroying moveable and immovable properties of the citizens..."

The Supreme Court’s observations confirm that the Provincial Government has failed to protect the lives and properties of the citizens, and that the Federal Government has also failed to protect Sindh against internal disturbances.  

The trend of extortion suggests that the business and professional community lives in perpetual fear, anxiety and terror in the city, which is the jugular vein for Pakistan’s business community. Daily Times, citing the official statistics exclusively available to them reported, on June 25, 2012, that at least 172 complaints of extortion were reported in first six months of 2012. Only a fraction of cases are reported, while unquestioning compliance is the general rule.  

Shopkeepers in urban industrial areas have been particularly vulnerable targets, either succumbing to the threats to ‘pay up or die’. Ahmad Chinoy, the Chief of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), which looks into extortion cases in the city and also engages in negotiations in kidnapping-for-ransom cases on behalf of the victims’ families, discloses that he gets 7 or 8 calls every day from affluent businessmen, complaining of extortion demands. According to CPLC there have been more than 360 FIRs registered at Police Stations across the city in case of extortion. Chinoy notes, “Majority of the people do not report it and many are actually willingly paying extortion in different business and industrial areas of Karachi because they know they have no other choice.”  

The worst reported extortion-linked massacre occurred on October 19, 2010, in Karachi’s Sher Shah Scrap market, claiming 13 lives. The attack was the result of failed ‘negotiations’ between an extortion group and the Sher Shah Market Association. The incident brought the city’s extortion rackets under a spotlight.

Meanwhile, the Karachi Police set up an Anti-Extortionist Cell, headed by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Wasif Qureshi, on March 5, 2012. The Cell has, however, proved redundant, as violence and extortion continue unabated. Some recent incidents of extortion related violence illustrate the enormity of the problem: 

October 28: Shahid Hussian, the owner of a hotel, was killed in Mehran Colony after receiving death threats from a group of extortionists who had extorted from him five months earlier. Hussain refused to comply with their second demand and was shot dead.

October 26: An owner of an electronics shop, identified as Rasool Khan (35), was shot dead in an extortion incident within the Iqbal Market Police limits, at Chisti Nagar’s Qureshi Market.

A tailor, identified as Altaf Baig, was shot dead in the Zaman Town Police remit in Korangi, in an extortion-linked incident.

October 1: Ashraf Khan (47), was killed, and Sher Khan (43), was injured in an extortion-linked clash between two political parties near Rabia City Apartments in Gulistan-e-Jauhar within the vicinity of Shahrah-e-Faisal.

September 15: The owner of a general store, Mohammad Ahmed Siddiqui, was shot dead and his brother Shams injured while they were returning home near Alliance Arcade in Block-15 of Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Police investigators revealed that Ahmed had received death threats from a group of extortionists.

August 25: A man, identified as Farooq, was shot dead over his refusal to pay extortion in Gulistan-e-Jauhar within the jurisdiction Shahrah-e-Faisal Police Station.

August 12: Three passersby were injured when a hand grenade was hurdled at Ali Hardware Shop situated at UP Morr, North Karachi, over refusal to pay extortion, in the jurisdiction of the Sir Syed Police Station.

July 24: In another extortion related incident unidentified assailants hurled a hand grenade at Haji Zahoor Hotel situated in Faqeer Colony, in Karachi, injuring five.

July 22: Four people were killed and several others, including a Station House Officer (SHO), were injured by a criminal group in Sohrab Goth. Some members of the Jannat Gul group of Lyari, arrived at the meat market located behind Al-Asif Square in Sohrab Goth and tried to extort money from shopkeepers there. The shopkeepers refused and tried to overpower the extortionists, but the latter managed to escape. They later returned to the market carrying weapons including Kalashnikovs and opened fire on the shopkeepers, killing four of them.

July 21: Three people, identified as Mirza Jan, Shah Faisal and Ghulam Rasool, were killed in an extortion related incident of firing at Al-Asif square in the Sohrab Goth area.

July 18: four people were injured in a hand grenade attack while they were protesting against extortion in the FB Area.      

July 8: Unidentified armed extortionists targeted the house of a trader, Abdul Qadir, within the remits of Darakhshan Police Station.

June 6: A trader, identified as Abdul Hameed (45), was shot dead, while Head Constable Aslam Ameer was injured in an extortion-related attack in the Latif Cloth Market within the Kharadar Police Station limits.

June 1: A man, identified as Ali Muhammad (60), was killed outside a bakery in Khokhrapar. Investigators said the victim had been receiving threats from extortionists. 

The All Pakistan Organization of Small Traders and Cottage Industries (APOSTCI), on August 5, 2012, declared that the recent trend of grenade attacks on shops and markets that refused to comply with extortion demands had terrorised local traders and businessmen, totally destroying the prospects of further investment in Karachi. Noting the involvement of ‘power holders’, the APOSTCI President observed that, in the past, extortionists backed by the ruling parties used to send bullets wrapped in bhatta parchi (extortion demand chits) to Karachi traders; now emboldened by covert backing from corridors of power, these mafias hurl grenades on shops and markets that refuse or delay bhatta payments.

On October 21, 2012, the All Karachi Traders Association launched a protest movement against the extortion mafia and Government inaction. Association leader Siraj Kassem Teli noted that extortion demands amounted to as much as PKR 1 billion. He further announced a complete shutter down strike in November 2012, if the business community was not provided adequate security.

The affected community in Karachi has little faith in Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). There is a general feeling that LEAs have succumbed to pressure from different political groups, and fail to deal effectively with the extortion mafias. Expressing this sentiment, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain, on October 29, 2012, asked the Rangers, the Police and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials to find out the elements within their ranks, who were harbouring criminals involved in these heinous offences.

Limited Police action over the past two years has also exposed the role of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terrorist outfits in the extortion. On April 8, 2011, the Sindh Police Crime Investigation Department (CID) arrested two suspected terrorists, identified as Shahid alias Goli and Mohammad Sharif alias Malang belonging to TTP’s Qari Shakeel Group, from the Sohrab Goth area. Interrogations revealed that they had been tasked to collect extortion money specifically from the transport business in Karachi. They had joined the TTP in 2008 under the leadership of Wali Khalid alias Umer Khalid after their Afghan mission, and were given the responsibility of generating funds for the outfit in Karachi.

TTP’s involvement in extortion is not limited to Karachi alone, but extends deep into the tribal areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), as well as Punjab. Though the tribal areas remain relatively less affected, they are not entirely out of the extortion loop, and serve as the “reserve coffers” for the TTP and Haqqani Network. Among the significant extortion related incidents in the tribal areas was the October 12, 2012, attack at a doctor’s clinic near Race Course on Peshawar Road, where an explosive device was thrown, though no casualties were reported. A note found at the site claimed the blast was the work of TTP and he received a call demanding a huge (unspecified) sum of money.

The Haqqani Network, an Afghan militant outfit based in North Waziristan Agency of FATA and the most implacable foe of the NATO forces in Afghanistan, has also built a vast empire out of extortion, abduction and smuggling. A September 11, 2102, report titled, How to Launch a Sustained Attack on the Haqqanis’ Financial Infrastructure, submitted to the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation and Trade noted,

A conventional analysis would suggest the Haqqanis engage in organized crime in order to fund their war effort... The Haqqanis' capacity to raise funds from ideological supporters requires ongoing struggle, and their capacity to profit off key business activities, in particular extortion, kidnapping and smuggling, depends on a sustained state of insecurity and limited state influence. This suggests that Network leaders have a financial disincentive to ending the conflict through reconciliation, and that a campaign to reconcile with this criminalized network would be futile.

Punjab also exists within the reality of bhatta wasuli (extortion). According to Interior Ministry sources, TTP has generated funds to the tune of PKR 3 billion since 2008 till August 2012 through extortion, donations and kidnappings from three big cities including Karachi (in Sindh), and Islamabad and Rawalpindi in Punjab. On September 6, 2012, the Islamabad Police arrested alleged TTP operatives who used to arrange funds for their organisation through extortion and abductions. Interrogations revealed that the money raised through extortion and kidnappings was sent to training camps in tribal areas, where the militants also planned terrorist attacks.

Both native residents and migrants from tribal areas have been victimised. Among the first category, a businessman from Rawalpindi, identified as Naveed Sharif, received a threatening call from a TTP ‘commander’ identified as Lodhi, who demanded PKR 20 million, with the threat of abducting him and his family if the demand was not met. Police have registered a case and started investigations.    

In another incident, Muhammad Saeed, the owner of Shah Flour Mills located at Wah Cantonment, received a call from unidentified extortionists demanding a large sum of money. Unable to comply, Saeed’s mill was attacked with a hand grenade on October 6, 2012, injuring an employee. Complaining about Police laxity, Saeed said that no security had been provided by the Police, even after the mill was targeted. He also disclosed that his nephew, Abdul Qayyum Sethi, who also owns a flour mill, had received threat calls from extortionists.

On October 3, 2012, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) informed the Punjab Government that some families who left militancy-hit FATA and took up residence in the Rawalpindi District of Punjab, had received extortion threats, allegedly from the TTP. Officials divulged that the threats are delivered to affluent individuals over the telephone or through ‘chits’, demanding large sums of money or ‘valuable articles’, or other ‘assistance’ – under threat of kidnapping or other harm. According to CTD officials, the money raised by the terrorists through such crimes goes to finance their terrorist apparatus, as Governments at home and abroad put increasing checks on the flow of funds to banned outfits through charity and other sources. The Officials have also recognised at least eight wealthy families residing in Naseerabad, Chah Sultan and Chowki Hameeda localities of the garrison city, who had paid extortion money to terrorist formations. Under threat from extortionists, most victims steer clear of Police involvement, fearing collusion.

Pakistan is, today, awash with Islamist extremist militancy and organised crime groups backed by the state and political establishment, creating a regime of heightened lawlessness and anarchy. The dawn of ‘democracy’ in Pakistan has coincided with a further decline of political and administrative institutions, an escalation of conflict, and a further destabilisation of the economy. As the authority of the State disintegrates, the blood bath in Pakistan continues, with an abject failure on the part of both the Federal and Provincial Governments to respond adequately to a challenge that increasingly threatens the very integrity and existence of the state.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

INDIA

Assam

Jammu and Kashmir

Manipur

Nagaland

Left-wing Extremism

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Odisha

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)