SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 1, No. 19, November 25, 2002

J&K: No Respite from Jehadis
Kanchan Lakshman
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

38 persons, including 17 security force (SF) personnel, were killed in three separate terrorist strikes in a span of just three days over the last week in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). These high-intensity attacks come against the backdrop of a 'soft approach' adopted by the new coalition government headed by Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed. Evidently, the decision not to implement the Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA), the proposal to merge the Special Operations Group (SOG) into the J&K Police, and the release of some terrorists and secessionist leaders has substantially emboldened the terrorist groupings.

At least 13 persons were killed and 45 others injured, eight of them seriously, when two fidayeen ('suicide' terrorists) simultaneously attacked two shrines - Raghunath and Panjbakhtar temples - in the heart of Jammu City in the evening of November 24. A six-hour long gun battle ended with a total of 13 dead. Violence recommenced briefly around the Panjbakhtar temple the next morning when a third terrorist, presumed to be part of the same squad was engaged and neutralized by the by SFs. J&K Director General of Police A.K. Suri indicated that the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) was responsible for this attack, the second in eight months on the Raghunath temple - the most important Hindu shrine in the Jammu region. This information was derived from a telephone call received by Suri at his residence in which a "Pakistani LeT cadre" said, "we have done it and now it is your turn."

Earlier, in its first suicide attack in year 2002 in Srinagar, a LeT squad, killed six, and injured nine SF personnel at a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp on November 22. Both the terrorists in this attack were killed in retaliatory firing. This was also the first major terrorist attack after the new coalition government took office on November 2. An unidentified LeT spokesperson reportedly claimed that the incident was part of the group's "Operation Badar" which had been launched in the holy month of Ramzan. Incidentally, LeT chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was released from house arrest on November 19 in Lahore, Pakistan. Earlier, the military regime had released Saeed from prison on October 31 after five months in detention, and had immediately placed him under house arrest.

In the third major incident last week, 19 persons - including nine SF personnel, three women and two children - were killed in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast at Lower Munda in South Kashmir on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway on November 23. According to official sources, one of the vehicles in a convoy carrying SF personnel and their family members to Jammu from Srinagar hit a landmine, six kms short of the Jawahar Tunnel.

The terrorist strikes are not restricted to the State of J&K. In what appears to be a series of strikes on places of worship, a woman was killed and approximately 20 people were injured in an explosion near the Sai Baba temple in the Dilsukhnagar area in Hyderabad, the capital city of the southern Indian State of Andhra Pradesh on the night of November 21. The blast occurred three hours after United States Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill had left the city after a two-day visit. The South India 'commander' of LeT, Syed Aziz alias Khalil alias Imran, one of the two prime accused in the November 21-bomb blast, was killed in an encounter near Rekurthi village on the outskirts of the Karimnagar town, on November 24. Earlier, Mohammad Azam, the other accused who allegedly triggered the Hyderabad blast, was killed in an encounter in the Parvatipuram area on the outskirts of Hyderabad on November 22.

The Hyderabad attack appears to be part of a concerted campaign by Pakistan to extend terrorism into other theatres across India, not only maintain the cover of deniability, but also to project the notion that minorities in India are resorting to 'indigenous uprisings' to protest their supposed 'persecution in Hindu India'. Exactly two months prior to the Raghunath and Panjbakhtar temples incidents, 32 persons had been killed, on September 24, 2002, when two LeT terrorists launched an attack at the Akshardham Temple in the western Indian State of Gujarat. Part of an old terrorist stratagem, recent attacks on places of worship are conspicuously designed to create religious tensions in the highly polarized post-Godhra scenario prevailing in parts of the country, as also as a result of the impending Legislative Assembly elections in Gujarat.

There has been no systematic de-escalation in the levels of terrorist violence in J&K since the pre-election spurt - indeed, the beginning of the year (Table) - and monthly variations would largely be attributable to operational inefficiencies, extraordinary international pressure on Pakistan for brief periods of time, or other transient factors. 98 civilians and 104 SF personnel have been killed (till November 24) after the completion of the electoral process in the State on October 9. 122 civilians and 123 SF personnel have been killed during the months of October and November.

While trends in violence remain unchanged, a more disturbing development is the deliberate lowering of guard by the new coalition government in the State, which has obstructed ongoing counter-terrorism operations, and has already enlarged a number of terrorists on bail, including, prominently, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) 'commander' Nazir Ahmad Sheikh and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) 'commander' Mohammad Ayub, as well as former terrorist and current secessionist Yasin Malik, chairman of the JKLF.

The State government has announced its decision to hold talks on the Kashmir issue "without any pre-conditions" with a mélange of groups actively pursuing the agenda of violence. All these 'initiatives' are purported to be part of the 'healing touch' that the Mufti Mohammad Saeed regime wishes to administer in the violence riven State. How a refusal to impose the criminal law of the land, and the creation of conditions that enhance the ease of operations for terrorist groups, is going to 'heal' the wounds inflicted on the people of J&K remains unclear. What is clear, however, is the fact that over 33,000 people have lost their lives to terrorism in the State over the past 13 years, and that the intensity of violence shows no signs of decline; that the Pakistan-backed terrorist agenda shows a remarkable continuity, with no signs of dilution in the post 9/11 phase; that the Indian political leadership has still to define a consistent counter-terrorism strategy that goes beyond populist sloganeering; and that, consequently, the terrorists are going to continue to kill with a distressing frequency in the foreseeable future.

ASSESSMENT

INDIA

Bihar: Expanding Left-Wing Violence
Sanjay K. Jha
Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management

With the bifurcation of Bihar in November 2000, there was a general feeling that the State would witness a decline in the violence perpetrated by various left-wing extremist groups - called Naxalites. A number of the affected districts in south Bihar went over to the newly created State of Jharkhand, and it was expected that the remaining areas in Bihar would be easier to control. The last two years, however, have not only witnessed a consolidation of extremists in their strongholds, but a further expansion of their activities into new areas. Moreover, the growing understanding between hitherto warring Naxalite groups and their deepening linkages with Maoist insurgents in Nepal have created additional threats in this eastern State of India.

The Naxalite movement, which originated in the small town of Naxalbari in Darjeeling district, West Bengal, had a direct impact on Bihar, and the Bihar State Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (BSCCCR) was formed on December 10, 1968. The militant Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) came into being in 1969. The Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), which came into existence in 1967 in West Bengal, surfaced for the first time in Bihar in 1972. The Majdoor Kishan Sangharsha Samiti (MKSS), later known as the CPI-ML (Party Unity) was formed in 1982. In a major effort at the consolidation of left-wing activity, the CPI-ML (Party Unity) merged with the People's War Group (PWG) of Andhra Pradesh in 1998, to constitute the CPI-ML (People's War).

At present, the major left-wing extremist groups active in Bihar include the MCC; the CPI-ML (People's War) - commonly known as the People's War Group (PWG); the CPI-ML (Liberation), which continues to maintain underground squads even though it claims to have relinquished the path of violence and has been participating in parliamentary politics since 1992; the Shantipal group; and the CPI-ML (New Democracy). Of these, the MCC and the PWG are the primary surviving threats in the State.

Bihar presently stands third, after Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh, in terms of the scale of Left-wing activities. In the first nine months of year 2002, a total of 104 persons, including 19 extremists, six police personnel and 79 civilians had been killed in the extremist violence. This followed 121 killings in the year 2001, which included 14 extremists, 24 police personnel and 83 civilians.

Left-wing extremists are active in twenty-eight out of Bihar's 40 districts, and the worst affected Patna, Gaya, Aurangabad, Arwal Bhabhua, Rohtas and Jehanabad in South western parts of the State. Of late, however, there has been a spurt in extremism in parts of North Bihar including the Motihari, Sheohar, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga districts. The PWG has also extended its areas of influence in Shaharsha, Begusarai and Vaisali, and the MCC is trying to use Kaimur Hills, situated on Bihar's borders with Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh (UP), to expand its activities in the Kaimur region and UP. The formation of the Utpirit Mukti Vahini (Force for the Liberation of the Oppressed) in West Champaran district has also caused considerable alarm in the establishment.

The growing nexus of the Naxalites in Bihar with Maoist insurgents in Nepal is another cause for rising concern. Bihar has eight districts with 54 police stations situated along the 753 kilometre-long open border with Nepal. As a result of the crackdown on Maoists in the Himalayan Kingdom, the Bihar-Nepal border has become increasingly vulnerable to use by the Nepali Maoists. An estimated 20 Maoist insurgents have been arrested from different parts in North Bihar since January 2001. In recent incidents, six Maoist insurgents were arrested in Sitamarhi on July 20, 2002; another three were arrested in Motihari district on July 19, 2002; and on November 27, 2001, the West Champaran district police arrested a Naxalite with explosives meant for the Maoists in Nepal.

MCC and the PWG linkages with the Nepali Maoists are not a recent development. In February 1996, the MCC Central Committee published a paper welcoming the Maoist movement in Nepal, and in October that year, condemned the 'repression' of the Maoists by the Nepalese government. All three groups are part of the joint 'Indo-Nepal Border Regional Committee,' and unconfirmed reports indicate that the MCC has been training Nepali Maoist cadres in Aurangabad district. Training camps are also said to exist in the West Champaran district of North Bihar.

The growing linkage between the MCC, the PWG and the Nepali Maoists are part of their larger strategy to create a 'Compact Revolutionary Zone' stretching across Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Bihar, to Nepal. With Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) becoming increasingly active along the Bihar-Nepal border and the growing use of Nepalese territory by the ISI for anti-India activities, there are apprehensions that the ISI may also incorporate Left-wing extremist groups in its strategy to destabilize India.

The Bihar Government, on its part, has initiated a number of steps to contain Left-wing extremism, including the creation of a Special Task Force (STF) and Special Operations Groups (SOGs) to neutralize the armed groups, as well as a comprehensive surrender and rehabilitation package. These measures, however, have failed to check the expansion of Naxalite activities.

The collapse of the institutions of civil governance, the general breakdown of the rule of law, the sharp polarization of state institutions on the basis of caste, the criminalisation of politics, and the existence of a collusive arrangement between the political establishment, various state institutions and extremist elements, create a context that sustains the violence of these groups. There is little evidence, under the present circumstances, that the present and projected initiatives by the administration will succeed in neutralising the growing menace of extremism in one of India's most backward States.