Groping in the dark

Both Chief Minister Sayeed and the Central government have realised that the violence must be contained before talks can replace terror, but neither knows how to go about it.

Official sources said here two Pakistani terrorists, Abu Juniad and Abu Usma of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, kidnapped Basharat Hussain from his house at Kasblandi village late last night, the sources said.

They took him to a dense forest area and tortured him severely, before carving out their names on his body, the sources said. After that Hussain was shot dead and the body was thrown near his village, the sources said. Residents of Mendhar staged a bandh in the town today in protest.

Press Trust of India, Jammu, November 28.

AT about the same time that the Lashkar-e-Toiba must have been determining whether Basharat Hussain was an informer, an irreligious person, or just insufficiently deferential, Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was making his first speech in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. He addressed the terrorist assault on Jammu at some length. "Attacks notwithstanding," the Chief Minister concluded, "we are determined to move ahead. Let there be no doubts about that. We will carry forward the peace process initiated by our government. We will deliver the goods and bring the people of the State out of the quagmire in which they have been trapped for several years now." Reality has an unpleasant way of intruding on political reveries. As the depressing war in Jammu and Kashmir grinds on, the first month of the People's Democratic Party (PDP)-Congress (I) alliance government appears depressingly similar to the ones that preceded it.

The sad truth is that Sayeed's government has come to power with the dice loaded against it. Aided by the Union government's inept handling of Jammu and Kashmir affairs, Pakistan's offensive posture has been hardening in recent weeks. On November 1, the Pakistan government allowed the Lashkar-e-Toiba's parent organisation, the Jamaat-ud-Dawah, to hold its annual convention for the first time since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The organisation, which was earlier known as the Markaz Dawah wal'Irshad, had called for a pan-India terror campaign during its 2000 convention at Murdike. After September 11, the organisation renamed itself to avoid legal sanctions imposed by the United States, and announced that the Lashkar-e-Toiba would operate independently from bases on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC). Nothing of the kind happened, but Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed was arrested, and the organisation was prohibited from holding its annual convention in 2001.

On October 16 this year, Defence Minister George Fernandes announced the end of Operation Parakram, the forward deployment of the Indian military that was initiated in response to the December 13, 2001 attack on Parliament House. In response to a question in Parliament, Fernandes asserted that the build-up had achieved its objectives. Operation Parakram, he claimed, had exerted military pressure on Pakistan and forced its military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, to denounce the jehad in Jammu and Kashmir in his speeches of January 12 and May 27. "Some of the terrorist organisations in Pakistan were banned, some terrorist camps in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir were closed, their accounts frozen and leaders arrested," Fernandes said. Cross-border infiltration, he claimed, had "come down considerably compared to the figures of the corresponding period of the previous year." Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had promised an aar paar ka jang, or cross-border war, maintained a stoic silence.

Therefore the timing of the Jamaat-ud-Dawah convention is no coincidence. Instead of Murdike, the convention was held at Patoki in Kasur district of Pakistan's Punjab province. Indian intelligence sources estimate that up to 100,000 people attended the convention. Sajid Mir, the head of the ultra-Right religious organisation, the Ahl-e-Hadith, was a guest speaker. So were at least two Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) personnel connected with operations in Jammu and Kashmir, who Indian intelligence officials know as `Colonel Naaz' and `General Abdullah'. Although no weapons were on display at the convention, well-known Lashkar operatives were present, and venomous anti-India speeches were delivered. On September 22, the Pakistan government went one step further, and released Saeed from detention. Four days later, he met Jamaat-e-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad and asked for the right-wing Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal's support for the Lashkar's operations.

India's protests might have been more effective had the Union government not tied itself up in knots on the Operation Parakram issue. Speaking to reporters in Bhubaneshwar on November 8, outgoing Army chief S. Padmanabhan claimed that Operation Parakram had succeeded in bringing about a sharp reduction in infiltration. The number of terrorists crossing the LoC in 2002, he said, was less than half the number during 2001. "If we were to assume that the problem was 100 per cent in 2001, then it has reduced to 46 per cent in 2002," he asserted. At one level, the claim was true. On the basis of reports from various intelligence agencies and ground forces, the Union Home Ministry estimates that some 1,100 terrorists had infiltrated into India by the end of September 2002, compared to 1,600-odd that had infiltrated during the same period in 2001. The Army has traditionally given lower estimates than the Intelligence Bureau (I.B.), the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Jammu and Kashmir Police.

What General Padmanabhan did not see fit to mention was that this drop in infiltration had little to do with the claimed deterrent effect of Operation Parakram. Infiltration did dip after Musharraf's January 12 speech, but rose again in March, April and May to levels that were higher than those recorded in 2001. There were exceptionally high levels of snowfall in January and February, which in itself would have deterred infiltration. After the May 27 speech, infiltration fell again in June. However, it began to build up from August, and by October, most experts agree, it reached 2001 levels.

Crucially, the levels of violence in Jammu and Kashmir gauged by the number of terrorist attacks, civilian casualties, killings of security personnel, or the number of terrorists eliminated were higher than in 2001. Musharraf may have responded to U.S. pressure by periodically scaling down infiltration, but maintained it at levels that were high enough to sustain Pakistan's campaign in Jammu and Kashmir. Indeed, Parakram does not seem to have deterred Pakistan from actually escalating the low-intensity war.

All of this means that terrorist groups have been free to greet the new PDP-led government in an exceptionally warm fashion, secure in the knowledge that there was little that India could do to coerce Pakistan into restricting their activities. On November 24, a bomb explosion claimed the lives of 12 people at Lower Munda, near Qazigund in Anantnag. Five of the victims were wives and children of Army personnel. If a similar attack at Kalu Chak in May on the families of Army personnel led India to threaten war, this time around it remained silent. The scale of the Kalu Chak killings, which claimed 25 lives, was of course larger, but the principle involved was near-identical. Later, a spokesperson for the Jamait-ul-Mujahideen called newspaper offices in Srinagar to say that the bombing was intended as a "welcome" gesture to the new government. A day earlier, a suicide squad attacked a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Srinagar, killing six personnel. The assault came after a long interregnum in such actions in the Kashmir Valley. Then, on November 28, terrorists fired rockets at Radio Kashmir's offices in Srinagar, but there was no loss of life. There are disturbing signs that things could get worse. On November 23, two Pakistani terrorists known to have past affiliations with the Hizbul Mujahideen, Samsher Khan and Zaffar Rathore, were shot dead at Phagla, near Surankote in Poonch. Khan was carrying a card that identified him as a member of the Jammu and Kashmir Al Qaeda, the first real suggestion that the outfit is active in the State.

The impact of the renewed Pakistani offensive has been felt far outside Jammu and Kashmir. The recent bomb blast at the Sai Baba temple near Hyderabad threw up evidence suggesting that the Lashkar-e-Toiba has begun to reactivate its all-India cells. Two alleged terrorists eliminated by the Hyderabad Police after the incident, Mohammad Imran and Mohammad Azam, both had long-standing links to top Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Azam Ghauri. Ghauri had been eliminated in an encounter two years ago, after a series of bombings and assassinations. Like Ghauri, Imran is believed by Indian intelligence to have been trained at a Lashkar-e-Toiba camp near Murdike. After his killing, which was preceded by that of top Pakistan-based Lashkar terrorist Abdul Salim Junaid, the Lashkar briefly de-escalated its operations. However, in the wake of the communal pogrom in Gujarat, the organisation began pumping in personnel and providing support to them through its sleeper cells in India. The Lashkar-e-Toiba believes that its campaign in Jammu and Kashmir is just part of a larger war against `Hindu' India.

Escalating violence indicates the structural problems plaguing the peace process that Sayeed is attempting to push forward. If terrorist groups or their state sponsors believe that dialogue is imminent, they will seek as strong a bargaining position as possible. In recent interviews, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Mohammad Yousuf Shah has made it clear that his organisation would not cease hostilities before resuming a dialogue, since India would then have no reason to make significant concessions. Pakistan's decision to arrest Al-Umar chief Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar, who was released in the IC-814 prisoners-for-hostages swap at Kandahar, came in response to complaints that he had threatened All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) members engaged in dialogue with the Ram Jethmalani-led Kashmir Committee. However, Al-Umar promptly organised protests against the arrest in Srinagar, illustrating that the dog doesn't always wag the tail. Pro-Pakistan groups have also been mobilising aggressively; Pakistani flags were raised at the Jamia Masjid in Srinagar after Friday prayers on November 29.

Therefore, for dialogue to be successful, both the State and Union governments must first find means that will enable them to talk from a position of strength. While the State government has made clear that it will continue its discussions on autonomy with New Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party will find it hard to make serious concessions if large-scale killings continue in Jammu and Kashmir. Similarly, the APHC's engagement with the Kashmir Committee is contingent on terrorist groups accepting any agreement that both eventually arrive at. Jethmalani has repeatedly called for all sides to show flexibility, but terrorist groups have no reason to accept a political resolution, which does not meet their minimum objectives.

Finally, the PDP's own plans for a dialogue with mainly ethnic Kashmiri groups is unlikely to get off the ground if it remains under sustained attack from Pakistani organisations. Both the Chief Minister and the Union government have realised that violence must be contained before talks can replace terror. However, neither seems to have any real clue on how to go about achieving this.