ON THE EDGE

The battle for Jammu seems to be reaching a new, perhaps decisive, stage.

NO ONE knows what happened in the last moments of the life of the unknown terrorist who was holed up inside Jammu's Raghunath temple on Saturday, March 30. His right hand was not found among the remains, and forensic examiners discovered that his stomach and jaw had been torn apart by grenade shrapnel. It appeared that he had either been shot by the police just as he was preparing to throw a grenade, or that he had mishandled the device. If that grenade had seriously damaged the temple, venerated in much of northern India, Jammu could well have been torn apart by violence. But danger to the region remains: both terrorists and Hindu communal forces seem determined to push its communal fissures until some seismic event is finally precipitated.

The two terrorists who carried out the assault had arrived at the Raghunath temple complex just after 10-15 a.m. in a white jeep. They immediately opened fire at the guards outside the gate, killing three of them on the spot. Mercifully, police personnel in the busy downtown area, a few hundred metres from Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah's official residence, reacted fast. One terrorist was unable to enter the temple, and was shot while trying to escape through the crowded market. The second terrorist entered the temple complex and killed four pilgrims and temple staff. Eight others were injured. Temple priest Jeevanand Giri escaped death only because the terrorist's assault rifle had run out of ammunition by the time he reached the Dattatreya temple, where prayers were being conducted.

Prompt police action helped ensure that the assault did not lead to a full-blown communal riot. Officials at the site stopped crowds from dragging the bodies of the dead terrorists through the streets, and put an end to demands that they be cremated in the middle of the market. Subsequent demonstrations were rapidly dispersed. Although the neighbouring town of Udhampur saw some clashes between Hindu mobs and the police, no attacks on Muslims were allowed to take place.

Hindu communal reaction, however, has been kept simmering. On April 1, an Urdu leaflet was pinned up outside the Maha Kali temple in Subhash Nagar, threatening to blow up the shrine unless the priest stopped conducting prayers. The leaflet is believed to be a meaningless one, since it did not come on any organisation's letterhead. Nonetheless, rumours of further temple attacks have strained communal relations here.

Efforts to make political capital from the outrage, meanwhile, continue. At an April 3 press conference, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) senior vice-president Giriraj Kishore alleged that the terrorists who attacked the temple "could not have succeeded without the help of some locals". What basis the VHP leader had for this claim he did not say. The next day Kishore issued an unveiled threat, warning that those seeking to attack Hindu temples "should also understand that they have many shrines related to their religion in the rest of the country, which can also be made targets". "First the terrorists cleared the valley of Hindus," he continued, "and now they want to terrorise the Hindus of Jammu by making attempts to strike at shrines like Vaishno Devi and the Raghunath temple." The VHP is planning an all-India strike on April 8 to protest against the attack.

IF the VHP leader had been interested in discovering who terrorists were inflicting pain upon, he might have done well to visit Mohammad Hussain, who is still recovering from having his ears, lips and nose cut off by the Lashkar-e-Toiba at Sam Samit, Rajouri district, on February 2. Hussain's crime was to be suspected of aiding the Indian Army. Or, perhaps, having visited the relatives of Atta Mohammad of Kot Mali, near Mahore, who was shot dead on February 27 after he refused to serve tea to a group of terrorists. Year after year, official data reveal, Muslims have been the principal victims of violence inflicted by self-proclaimed defenders of their faith. Hindu communal leaders in Jammu have made much of the ethnic cleansing in the region, but rarely mention that Muslims have suffered as well.

On March 30, for example, the homes of two Hindu families who had migrated because of the terrorist threat were burned down in Kanthi Kot, near Arnas. The homes of four Muslim refugee families, however, were also set on light in nearby Thoru Karnasi at the same time.

Hate polemic serves only to help terrorist groups achieve their objective of beginning a major communal conflagration in Jammu. Of such efforts there is no shortage of evidence. On March 8, Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel killed five terrorists near the village of Gobiyan, a short distance from the Vaishno Devi shrine at Katra. Significantly, the terrorist group was interdicted because of information provided by a Muslim constable at considerable personal risk. Intelligence officials believe that the group, which was holed up in a cave, was there to attempt an assault on pilgrims. Vaishno Devi attracts over 300,000 visitors a month, mainly from northern India. Villagers had reported unusual terrorist activity in the until-now quiet Katra area from early this year. On the night of February 20, Village Defence Committee militia personnel had exchanged fire with a terrorist group at Jasserkote, near Panchari in Katra. There was, however, no loss of life.

Areas around Jammu city, which have seen little sustained terrorist activity in past years, have reported similar developments. On April 2, grenades were discovered at Amb Gharota and Saryala in the Akhnoor Sector, stocked for future use. On March 24, troops clashed with terrorists at Kharwa Nallah in Bani. The terrorists are believed to have been the same ones who set fire to homes, government buildings and two half-built police posts at Palwal and Daggar in Bani four days earlier. Interestingly, the arson at Palwal claimed the homes of both a Hindu, Anant Ram, and a Muslim, Mir Mohammad. On March 17, two Pakistani terrorists, Azmat Ullah of Gujranwala and Shaukat Zaman of Katak, were shot dead on the Tawi island in Jammu. The island is just 7 km from the border, and offers easy access to the city.

Part of this activity is simply because of the use of the international border when other infiltration routes to the north are closed because of snow. After crossing a so-far half-built electrified fence, terrorists entering through Samba can cross the sole highway connecting Jammu and Kashmir to the rest of India after a 7 km hike. From there it is relatively easy to proceed onwards through the mountains of Mansar and Udhampur into Doda or the Kashmir Valley. From Akhnoor, similarly, Reasi is just a day's walk, and from there the crossing of the Pir Panjal Range into Kashmir is relatively easy. Such groups are sometimes interdicted, generally on the border itself. On March 23, for example, two terrorists died when they accidentally detonated mines in the Khour Sector. An earlier engagement on December 31, 2001, claimed the lives of two terrorists and one Border Security Force (BSF) trooper.

KILLINGS in and around Jammu are not new. In August last year, three soldiers were killed by terrorists at Sapuwal, just 6 km from the border. The terrorists, equipped with assault rifles and explosives, were holed up in a nursery just off the national highway. The encounter took place only a few metres from the site where the Sealdah Express was bombed by terrorists in early 2000. Jammu itself has seen a welter of bomb attacks, notably on its bus and railway stations, over the years. Such enterprises are often helped by trans-border narcotics smugglers, many of them Hindu and Sikh. In early 2001, for example, the BSF recovered explosive devices from Kuldeep Kumar, Balkar Singh and Surinder Singh. Their intent, however, was largely tactical, seeking to put pressure on key Indian communications and supply routes.

What is different this summer is that the terrorists are targeting civilians in Jammu, with the express intention of provoking violent communal reactions. A vertical schism between Hindus and Muslims, of the kind the Hindu Right also seems determined to bring about, would do not a little to help Pakistan realise its minimum objectives, the sundering of the Muslim-majority areas of the State from its Hindu-dominated regions. To those engaged in this project, the communal violence in Gujarat has been an unexpected blessing. The anti-Muslim pogrom in that State has helped legitimise the Islamic Right, and enabled it to represent itself as a defender of communal interests. The Lashkar-e-Toiba's web site, for example, features photographs of victims of the Gujarat carnage, and asks if they would not have been safer armed in self-defence.

On April 6, the Jammu Police announced the discovery of further dimensions to the terrorist offensive on the city. Three top personnel of the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF) were found in possession of over a tonne of plastic explosive and several assault rifles, which they had intended to use on a series of targets in the city. The KZF, led by one-time Jammu resident Ranjit Singh Neeta, had been dormant since the killing of his key aide, Amritpal Singh Romi, near Kathua last year. It has a history of collaboration with groups of the Islamic Right, and its renewed efforts to operationalise its capabilities in Jammu are of obvious concern. "Terrorist groups believe," says city Senior Superintendent of Police Farooq Khan, "that attacks in Jammu would create direct communal strains in a way that massacres elsewhere in the region no longer provoke. Attacks on the city will also have a major economic impact."

So far, Jammu residents have maintained the peace despite provocation from the Far Right, whatever its colour. Many people in the city and adjoining Hindu-dominated areas have been enraged by the Union government's failure to contain terrorism, despite its decision to extend the Disturbed Areas Act to all of Jammu. The recent byelection to the Jammu Lok Sabha seat illustrated the depth of Hindu disappointment with the Bharatiya Janata Party, with its supporters in several important urban areas choosing not to come out to vote. This political reality at least in part explains the eagerness of Kishore and his political associates to cash in on the Raghunath temple outrage. If communal attacks escalate this summer, which seems probable, the communal unity seen this month will be tested. The battle for Jammu seems to be reaching a new, perhaps decisive stage. Its outcome, despite the fact that peace was maintained after the Raghunath temple attack, is still impossible to predict.