HVK Archives: Have we become inured to terrorist killings?
Have we become inured to terrorist killings? - The Times of India
Dinesh Kumar
()
3 July 1997
Title: Have we become inured to terrorist killings?
Author: Dinesh Kumar
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 3, 1997
"We are not a country that forgives. We don't forget. We seek
retribution." These harsh remarks were made by US State Department
spokesman Nicholas Burns on June 19 soon after Mir Aimal Kansi, the
assassin of two CIA officials, was brought to the United States after being
caught in Pakistan. That the US government spared no effort for tracing
the killer, a Pakistani, is evident from the fact that the Central
Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly paid
as much as $ 3.5 million to informants to locate Kansi and then sent a
special aircraft to fly him to the US to stand trial. This solitary
incident and Mr Burns' remarks demonstrates the seriousness and the extent
to which the US is willing to go when it comes to responding to acts of
terrorism in their country.
India presents a complete contrast. The Indian psyche of resigned
acceptance is evident from a recent incident that has been both underplayed
and under-reported. In early June, the Army caught a Pakistani soldier
belonging to the Special Services Group (SSG) at Reasi near Udhampur. The
SSG is the commando wing of the Pakistani army; and incidentally, it was
part of the 5000-odd soldiers that Pakistan had infiltrated into the Valley
in August 1965 as part of its dubious "Operation Gibraltar".
Havildar Mohammed Khalid revealed during his interrogation that he was
provided the cover of being an Army deserter and planted by the ISI to form
a part of the pro-Pakistan Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) terrorist group. He was
among a dozen other Pakistani soldiers to be recruited as a volunteer to
continue 'jehad' in Kashmir through the Jamait-e-Islami (JEI), the
ideological wing of the HM, and infiltrated into the Valley after intensive
training in handling specialised arms and explosives at Al Badar. 'This
group has since been providing expertise for coordinating activities of
select terrorist organisations as also mercenary groups under instructions
from the Pakistani Army and the ISI.
During his interrogation, he is reported to have admitted to stashing
consignments of arms and explosives in Budhal region and engineering a bomb
blast in Reasi. The modus operandi, as revealed by him, has been to spread
drugs in the state as also to force local youth to cross over to POK.
Pakistan, according to officials in both the home and defence ministries,
is using foreign mercenaries to provide leadership to militancy in the
state. Only recently, a report prepared during the tenure of the Benazir
Bhutto government had admitted to the existence of 38 training camps in
Pakistan for creating a mercenary force designed to. undertake 'jehad'
missions in Kashmir, Bosnia, Palestine and even some African countries.
Thus even as New Delhi and Islamabad have re-opened bilateral dialogue,
Pakistan's support to terrorist activities in the Valley is undergoing a
dubious qualitative change. Islamabad has changed tactics and begun pushing
foreign mercenaries in a big way. Consider the following: The security
forces killed almost as many foreign mercenaries (213) in 1996 alone
compared to the number killed in the preceding five-year period (241) from
1991-95. So far this year, the forces have killed 1 10 foreign
mercenaries. They have similarly caught more foreign mercenaries (108) in
the first six months of this year alone as compared to the numbers caught
in the preceding six years (106) from 1991 to 1996.
Out of the total 564 foreign militants killed between January 1991 and June
this year, I98 have been Pakistani nationals. Slain militants from
Afghanistan (178) rank a close second while the 'not known' category (154)
ranks third in this disconcerting list. Residents of Pakistan occupied
Kashmir (POK) turned-terrorists killed till date have comprised a marginal
21. Other 11 contributing" nations have been Sudan (5), Bahrain (1), Yemen
(1), Iran (1), Bangladesh (4) and even far away Chechnya (1) and Turkey (2).
Out of the 110 foreign mercenaries killed so far this year, 31 were killed
in June alone. Pakistani nationals have again ranked at the top (23) with
Afghanistan a close second (18) and the 'not known' category listed at 15.
Out of the total of 108 foreign mercenaries caught in the state so far this
year, Pakistani nationals have once again accounted for the largest number
(43) of foreign mercenaries caught in Kashmir followed by those from POK
(27) and from Bangladesh (24). The influx of Bangladeshi nationals into
Kashmir has been a relatively new phenomenon with 19 caught in the year
1994 alone. Information that Bangladeshis were getting involved in the
state was officially revealed for the first time in November 1995 by then
outgoing Border Security Force (BSF) director general D K Arya.
Consider the following statistics to assess the situation in Kashmir: The
last seven years of militancy in Jammu and Kashmir has claimed 16,698
lives, including 7,727 civilians in 34,768 incidents of violence between
January 1990 and December 1996. Of these people killed in the Pakistan
sponsored proxy war, 5,411 civilians were killed by terrorists and 2,316
civilians were killed in crossfire between the forces and militants.
Another 7,506 civilians were injured in militant attacks. Similarly, 7,660
militants have been killed by security forces of whom 1,515 were killed
along the Line of Control while attempting to infiltrate from POK. Till
December 1996, 1,311 security force personnel had been killed and 4,568
injured in a phenomenal 13,030 incidents directed against the security
forces. A total of 2,671 persons were abducted by militants, of whom 666
were abducted in 1996 alone. Of the total kidnappings, 73 per cent were
killed by the militants.
Thus while the many thousands killed in Kashmir have been treated as
impersonal statistics in India and are topics for "academic studies" for
think-tanks in the US and other parts of the western world, just two CIA
officials being killed in the United States is "a serious and unpardonable
sin" and has the US government going on an international hunt for the
solitary assassin hiding at the other end of the world. One wonders for
how long Kashmir will continue to provide for ritualistically dished out
statistics by the Union home ministry.
Back
Top
|
