Militants and rabble rousers in the Valley are losing their steam with the passing of each day of protest. Their handlers had ganged up soon after they sensed that mobs were vulnerable to fanatical propaganda and the opportunity was there to drag the State to the brink of disaster. Seditious leadership lost no time in provoking the people in the Valley and the youth in particular to embark on a wholesale campaign of anti-national subversion. Anti-Government demonstrations and mob mobilization were carried on in the entire Valley but more particularly in South Kashmir, well-known stronghold of the Jamaat-i-Islami.
Gathering of huge number of people in Tral area to mourn the death of Burhan clearly showed that there was a plan with the militants and their sympathizers to provoke mobs into anti-Government and anti-State frenzy with no other objective but to create disorder and bring law and order in the State under severe strain. Defeated and frustrated political activists who were dislodged by the public vote in elections to Assembly in 2014 are unable to swallow the defeat. Although outwardly they profess to be tolerant and democrats, yet in reality they are far distanced from these positive facets.
For more than two months in recent past, we had reports from various sources that the jihadis were making large scale preparations of accelerating their multi-faceted activities of clandestinely trespassing into our side of the LoC or IB. The security forces had the clue that showed how preparations were being made to launch infiltration and assaults on the camps of security forces. Military intelligence reports corroborated our analysis.
On political front, the seditionists focused attention on large scale provocative campaign to boost mob frenzy and profiling the so-called “victimhood syndrome” of the people of the valley. Fervent appeals by the Chief Minister of the State and the Union Home Minister to shun violence and keep calm fell on deaf ears.
Frenzied mobs having lost balance under pressure of brainwashing by their external handlers have now begun to direct their ire to the cops and nationalist political leadership. Mobs are taking law into their hand and stopping the passersby to check their identity and handle them through arbitrary decisions. Who gives them authority to enter the private homes of people and conduct searches of their belongings in the vain hope of laying their hands on some clues to establish the links of the victimized people with the administration? The cops have become targets of the violence of mobs. A number of cops who were performing their normal duty have become the targets of the seditionists. The lawless mobs, particularly in South Kashmir, are stopping vehicles, dragging out the occupants, searching them, beating and thrashing them, tearing their clothes, warning them, breaking the window panes and screen of their cars. A large number of incidents akin to anarchy are taking place in the valley.
The situation is gradually taking the shape of internecine war in which the policemen and low ranking politicians are becoming easy targets of their assailants. Houses of some members of the ruling political party have been torched, fruit bearing trees in the orchards of some cops have been felled and destroyed and family members of the cops are intimidated. This is not acceptable and the might of the State has to come in to play its role. This is not a struggle for freedom; this is sedition, an internecine war and a self destruction spree. Kashmir society is already on the verge of polarization because of militancy which is abhorred by a majority of Kashmir valley population and the activities of the lawless mobs are vehemently contributing to that polarization. This foolhardy movement is going to boomerang very soon because it is unnatural.
India is committed to safeguard the hard earned freedom of Kashmiris. They struggled for that freedom for nearly half a century under the leadership of popular leader Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah. Now that he lies buried on the bank of Dal Lake, we would like to remind all Kashmiris that what they are doing is bound to make slight of the struggle for freedom and the great amount of energy invested in framing the new constitution of the State and then acting against the very constitution is reflective of a diseased mind.
In recent months Pakistan has substantially increased the infiltration bids of its jihadis. It has shot letters to world leaders raising the bogey of “oppression” of Kashmiris by the Indian troops and trying to frame a case of denial of their right to freedom of movement. The Home Minister will be proceeding abroad soon and he will try to convince the world powers that the epicenter of international terrorism is to be found in our neighbourhood.
India will respond to terrorist attacks. It is determined to fight terrorism. Actually her fight has been going on for last two decades and more. She knowns she has to fight it alone and will fight it, come what may.