SOUTH ASIA INTELLIGENCE REVIEW
Weekly Assessments & Briefings
Volume 12, No. 30, January 27, 2014

INDIA

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J&K: Resurgent Menace
Ajit Kumar Singh
Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management

The measured stride towards lasting peace in the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) was disturbed in 2013 by Pakistan's Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI, Pakistan’s external intelligence agency) both directly, through an escalating campaign of ceasefire violations, and through their various proxies – both terrorist and separatist. The trend of a sustained decline in terrorism-related fatalities since the year 2001, was reversed in 2013, with J&K recording 181 fatalities, as compared to 117 in 2012, a steep rise of 54.70 per cent.

According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database, 2013 witnessed the death of a total of 20 civilians, as against 16 in 2012, and 61 Security Force (SF) personnel, as against 17 in the preceding year. Civilian fatalities thus increased by 25 percent, and SF fatalities recorded a whopping rise of 258.82 per cent. According to State Director General of Police (DGP) Ashok Prasad, the “militants have started targeting SFs as part of their changed strategy to increase the violence graph” without jeopardizing the people’s support. The number of militants killed stood at 100 in 2013, as against 84 in 2012, an increase of 19.04 per cent.

Incidents involving killing increased from 70 in 2012 to 87 in 2013. Further, out of the 87 killing incidents in 2013, 22 were major incidents (each involving three or more fatalities) as against 10 in 2012. A day ahead of Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh’s visit to the State, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) terrorists ambushed an Army convoy in the Hyderpora area of Srinagar, J&K's summer capital, killing eight Army personnel and injuring 11, on June 24, 2013. The attack was the deadliest in the State in the last almost five years; on July 19, 2008, 10 soldiers were killed and another 18 were injured when HM terrorists destroyed an SF bus in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack at Narbal Crossing on the outskirts of Srinagar.

Worryingly, after a long hiatus suicide attacks haunted the State in 2013. As many as three such incidents, resulting in 20 fatalities, were executed through the year, as against none in 2012. In fact, the last suicide attack in J&K occurred on January 6, 2010, when terrorists had hit a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp at Lal Chowk in Srinagar, killing a Policeman and injuring nine persons, including one CRPF trooper.

Terrorist attacks occurred across a widening arc of the State through 2013, with fatalities reported from 14 of the State’s 22 Districts, as against 13 Districts in 2012. While civilian fatalities were reported from eight of these 14 Districts (seven Districts recorded civilian fatalities in 2012), 11 Districts recorded SF fatalities (eight Districts recorded SF fatalities in 2012). Kupwara accounted for the maximum number of fatalities, 67; followed by Srinagar, 24; Pulwama, 20; Baramulla, 17; Poonch, 12; Samba, 8; Rajouri and Shopian, 7 each, and Kathua, 6. In 2012, Kupwara had recorded highest number of fatalities, 34; followed by Baramulla, 32 and Srinagar, 8. Notably, by end of 2011, the State Home Ministry had declared at least seven Districts in the J&K completely free of terrorism, including five of ten Districts in the Jammu Division – Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Reasi and Doda – apart from Leh and Kargil, which had never seen significant militancy. However, in 2013, two of the three suicide attacks took place in Jammu Division which had witnessed the last major attack by the militants on May 8, 2009, when the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) militants had shot dead three persons at Bandara village in the Gulabgarh area of Reasi District.

Moreover, the orchestrated disorders that had been contained to a large extent over the preceding two years, after they had assumed disturbing proportions in 2010, when at least 112 protesters were killed in SF action against violent demonstrators, returned to troubling levels again. As against two incidents resulting in two fatalities in 2012, year 2013 recorded seven such incidents resulting in 12 deaths. Significantly, as many as 198 persons were injured in 20 incidents of stone pelting in 2013, as against 25 persons injured in 12 such incidents in 2012. Indeed, the separatists led by various factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC), who seemed to have lost the ground over the last many years as their diktats failed to deter people from participating in elections and, more importantly, failed to provoke people to participate in campaigns of violent protest, discovered a window of opportunity in the aftermath of Omar Abdullah’s Government failure to aptly handle the situation after the execution of 2001 Parliament Attack case convict Afzal Guru in Tihar Jail in New Delhi, on February 9, 2013. However, emerging internal conflicts between separatist leaders, despite the ISI’s constant efforts to secure their unity, neutralized the threat to a large extent. Indeed in January 2014, the Mirwaiz Maulvi Umar Farooq faction of the APHC split down the middle, when Democratic Freedom Party President Shabir Ahmad Shah, National Front Chairman Nayeem Ahmad Khan and Mahaz-e-Azadi chief Azam Inqalibi announced the formation of a third faction of the Hurriyat Conference, calling it the “Real Hurriyat”. The split reportedly came after Mirwaiz had addressed a letter to the Convener of APHC in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), Yousuf Naseem, asking him not to entertain these leaders as part of the Hurriyat. This was the second split in APHC, following the first division in September 2003. The APHC was formed in March 1993.

The State also saw some communal and sectarian clashes in 2013. On August 9, 2013, two persons were killed and several others were injured in clashes between two communities that erupted soon after Eid prayers in Kishtwar Town (Kishtwar District). It took almost a fortnight to bring the situation to normalcy after the tension spread to other adjoining areas as well. Further, incidents of arson were recorded during sectarian violence in Budgam District July 2013. Indeed, in November 2012, DGP Ashok Prasad, while disclosing that “not more than 250-300 militants are active in the State”, observed that the biggest concern was that “all of them [militants] have to show their performance. If some are fighting against the security forces, others try to prove their mettle in creating disturbance by using fault lines like religion, caste...”

Meanwhile, in addition to active terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), HM, and Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), long dormant outfits including Al Umar Mujahideen and Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA), showed some indications of reviving their activities. Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar, ‘chief’ of Al Umar Mujahideen announced the decision to revive "armed struggle" in J&K while using PoK as the base for his organization. Similarly, HuA declared it was ‘resuming’ operations under a new name, Jabbar-ul-Mujahideen (JuM), drawing its cadres from LeT, JeM and HM. JuM is said to have close links with the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network of extremists operating in Afghanistan. It is pertinent that, through 2013, al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) reiterated their intentions to target Kashmir in particular and India at large.

It is Islamabad's renewed misadventures in J&K that has provided the impetus for these adverse developments. This was demonstrated by an escalating campaign of ceasefire violations by Pakistan's Army, with at least 195 violations recorded through 2013, with 10 SF personnel killed, as against 93 in 2012, resulting in three SF deaths. At least 43 attempts at infiltration were made from across the border in 2013, as against 34 in 2012. At least 51 terrorists were killed during these attempts, as against 22 in 2012.

Clearly, buoyed by the prospects of the US drawdown from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, Pakistan has once again revived its objectives to provoke instability in J&K. The ‘intrusion’ into the Shala Bhata village along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Keran Sector of Kupwara District in September 2013, was a glaring example of Pakistan's intentions, with "division sized forces" intruding across "hundreds of kilometres". Further, according to an August 9, 2013, Government report, there was evidence that Pakistan was still running 22 terrorist training camps for India-centric operations. Most of these terror camps were located in and around Manshera in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province of Pakistan, while a few were situated near Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK. An unnamed security official stated, “In the last review, it was found that Pakistan security establishment was running around 40 terror camps but they were not organised. Whenever Pakistani intelligence agency ISI and its terror progenies like LeT or HM found 15 to 20 recruits, they would house them in a room anywhere in the PoK and start training them. But now, the camps are more organised and run in a systematic manner with more resources at their disposal.” According to media reports, nearly 2,500 terrorists are being held in readiness for operations in J&K, in camps in PoK and Pakistan.

These are ominous signs for Kashmir. It is not mere coincidence that this escalation of terror overlaps with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's assumption of office in Pakistan in June 2013. Significantly, after June 5, 2013, the day Sharif assumed power, J&K recorded 144 fatalities, including 10 civilians, 43 SF personnel and 91 terrorists (data till January 26, 2014). Seven of these fatalities, six terrorists and one SF trooper, have taken place in 2014.

Conspicuously, Sharif has sought to project himself as a messiah of peace, but his rhetoric on improving relations with India clearly failed to match up with developments on the ground. In this context, it is useful to re-examine his past misadventures as well as present overtures towards terrorist formations. Indian intelligence officials have reportedly submitted an assessment to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs stating that, pressurized by the ISI to ‘act’ on Kashmir, the Nawaz Sharif Government cleared a new 'Kashmir strategy' and set up a 'Kashmir Cell' in his office. The purpose of the cell is to keep track of ‘developments’ in J&K.

It is clearly imperative that New Delhi reorient its Kashmir policy. Instead of misdirected efforts to buy peace, extreme costs – diplomatic, political, economic or military – need to be inflicted on Pakistan for its continuing misadventures in India. On the home front, the biggest challenge will be to hold peaceful Parliamentary and Assembly Elections scheduled this year, in a safe and secure environment.

INDIA

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West Bengal: No Place to Hide
Mrinal Kanta Das
Research Assistant, Institute for Conflict Management

The body blow that the Security Forces (SFs) inflicted on the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) in West Bengal with the killing of its politburo member Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias Kishanji, on November 24, 2011, has been followed through with a number of other successes, including key arrests and surrenders, resulting in a near complete halt to Maoist violence in 2012. And in 2013, the story is no different for the Maoists. According to Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) data, no fatality in Maoists violence was recorded in West Bengal in 2013, as in 2012. Further, there was just one incident of Maoist violence recorded in West Bengal in 2013 against six incidents in 2012.

Partial data collected by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) confirms this trend and records no fatality in the civilian and SF categories, though one Maoist fatality in a Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-related incident was recorded in 2013: Hemanta Mahato, a leader of the CPI-Maoist-backed People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA), was beaten to death by angry villagers of Nedabahara in Jhargram Police District of West Bengal on August 17, 2013.

The only incident of violence by Maoists in West Bengal through 2013 was recorded on December 19, when former Civic Police [a local force that receives 10 days of training and is hired on a no-work no-pay basis @ INR 141 per day] constable, Dilip Pramanik, an active member of the Jungalmahal Unnayan Birodhi Protirodh Committee (Committee against Anti-Jungalmahal Development Forces) which is backed by the ruling Trinalmool Congress (TMC), was injured when CPI-Maoist cadres tried to abduct him from Tilai village under Balampur Police Station area in Purulia District.

In another sign of decline of the Maoist threat, the State Government granted the Railways permission to run trains at 'whatever speed it feels appropriate' between Kharagpur and Tatanagar and Midnapore and Adra, nearly three years after the Jnaneswari Express disaster. Further, during the first phase of the five-phase panchayat (local self government institution) polls conducted in July, voter turnout was at 65 percent in Bankura, 60 percent in Purulia and 65 percent in the West Midnapore District, the areas earlier worst affected by Maoist disruption and violence.

There are, however, indications that the Maoists have not entirely given up hope, and there is evidence of their desire to regroup in the State. On December 14, 2013, Maoist overground ideologue Varavara Rao, during the Second Conference of the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPC)] declared, "Certainly there will be resurgence of people's movement in West Bengal led by Maoist groups. They will regroup themselves. I am already seeing signs of that.” There was, however, more optimism than conviction in the pronouncement.

In mid-June 2013, intelligence agencies had alerted the State that about 40 to 45 Maoists under the leadership of Tara, wife of Maoist leader Bikash, were regrouping at an undisclosed location in Odisha-side of the Saranda Forest (Jharkhand), to renew their attack in West Bengal. Earlier, on February 1, 2013, West Bengal State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) Additional Director General (ADG) Banibrata Basu had disclosed, “We have specific inputs that Maoists are trying to regroup in the region. The squads of Maoist leaders Bikash in the Lalgarh area (West Midnapore), Ranjit in Ayodhya Hills (Purulia), Madan Mahato in Jambani, Akash and Jayanto are trying to regroup and recruit new people."

Media reports also suggest that the Maoists had opened up a new route through the Nayagram Block along the Odisha border to revive their organisation in West Bengal. A Policeman at the Nayagram Police Station claimed, "The Maoists are trying to reactivate their network in these villages lining the border that spans not more than 14 to 20 kilometres. So, if you want to feel the real pulse of the Maoists, go to villages like Baliaghati, Bordanga, Deolghati, Baghgheria, Narda and Ramchadrapur."  Local residents also attested to the fact that the Maoists were visiting the area in small groups of two to four.

Despite these feeble attempts, there is no denying that state Forces have consolidated their position and kept Maoist’s violence at bay. Six Companies of Central Para-military Forces (CPMFs) have been added to the existing 39 companies already deployed in the State, to intensify the vigil in the Jangalmahal region, following the intelligence alert on the regrouping of the Maoists.

Compounding the pressure on the Maoists, the state arrested 21 cadres in 2013, adding to the 76 arrested in 2012, according to UMHA data. The most prominent among these included Sabyasachi Goswami aka Kishore, and Zakir Hussain, who were arrested from the Jadavpur area in Kolkata. Police claim that they were important members of the Maoists’ Bengal State Committee and were trying to reorganize the outfit after the death of top Maoist leader Kishanji. Joyeeta Das - a member of Matangini Mahila Samity (Matangini Women Organisation) and one of the key organizers of the Nandigram (West Bengal) land agitation – was also arrested on August 2, 2013. Police claim that she was a Maoist city committee member and they had recovered some letters that confirmed her links with the rebel organisation. On December 12, 2013, a retired doctor of a Public Sector Undertaking identified as Dr. Samir Biswas (65), was arrested by the Asansol Durgapur Police Commissionerate in Bardhaman District on charges of sedition. He had reportedly treated Kishanji. Dr. Biswas had been absconding for the preceding three years, after a case of sedition was lodged against him in April 2010.

Security forces also recovered 45 firearms from the Maoists in the State. On January 28, 2013, in a joint operation led by West Bengal's Counter Insurgency Force (CIF) and Police, about eight kilograms of explosives and landmine-making equipment were recovered from a forest in Bagmundi Police Station area in Purulia District. A joint team of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and District Police also recovered a five-kilogram landmine under the Bolkunda Bridge in the Lalgarh area of West Midnapore District.

Meanwhile, the State Government has taken a number of initiatives for the development of Maoist-affected areas to further consolidate its position. On January 8, 2014, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee stated, "Our focus is creating employment opportunities in Jungalmahal and on improving basic services, such as health, education and infrastructure." Claiming that the success story of restoring peace in Jungalmahal was a model before the world, she recalled that 15,000 boys and girls were recruited to the Police and another 21,000 as 'Civic Police'. The Indian Army also recruited 549 persons in 2011-12 and 901 in 2012-13, from the LWE-affected Districts of West Bengal. Further, the State Government is also coming up with a tourist circuit in the West Midnapore District.

Not surprisingly, identifying Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as "one of the chief conspirators" in the encounter killing of Kishanji, Maoists have vowed to take revenge for the death of their politburo member. According to media reports, the Maoist ‘central committee’ has approved "retaliation" against her and declared that she would not be spared: "She will be punished when the time comes." A CPI-Maoist ‘internal inquiry commission’ also blamed surrendered Maoist Suchitra Mahato for Kishanji's death.

In another significant development, in March 2013, the Supreme Court stayed a Calcutta High Court (HC) order directing West Bengal to treat arrested members of CPI-Maoist as “political prisoners”. Meanwhile, the West Bengal State Assembly passed a Bill on August 27, 2013, to exclude persons who are members of any banned or terrorist organisations from being granted the status of political prisoners.

The Maoists have been crippled in West Bengal, and have little prospect of any early recovery. Their efforts, nevertheless, continue, and their persistent activities and presence in neighbouring States will remain an abiding threat to West Bengal as well.

Civilians

Security Force Personnel

Terrorists/Insurgents

Total

BANGLADESH

Islamist Terrorism

INDIA

Assam

Jammu and Kashmir

Nagaland

Left-wing Extremism

Bihar

Chhattisgarh

Jharkhand

Total (INDIA)

PAKISTAN

Balochistan

FATA

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Punjab

Sindh

Total (PAKISTAN)