Author: Special Correspondent
Publication: The Hindu
Date: July 9, 2010
URL: http://www.hindu.com/2010/07/09/stories/2010070957621200.htm
Even as the Army is on standby in trouble-torn
Srinagar and adjoining areas in the Kashmir Valley, indications are emerging
that some incidents of violence there was "planned and instigated."
Top sources in the Home Ministry said on Thursday
that security officials were looking at a number of intercepted conversations
between different individuals and extremist elements that point to deliberate
attempts at instigating violence and clashes.
Intercepts
The sources pointed out that intercepts showed
that hardline separatists had even discussed the possibility of killing at
least 15 people in a procession in Budgam district on the outskirts of Srinagar
on Wednesday. Intercepts also showed that extremist and hardline elements
in the Valley got rebuke for not being able to engineer large-scale violence
and deaths in south Kashmir.
The sources said there was reasonable suspicion
pointing to the involvement of the Lashkar-e-Taiba from across the border
in instigating violence during protests that led to clashes of civilians with
the police and security forces. They said that money trail pointed to the
transfer of funds from Dubai to the Valley through legal channels of money
transfer. The amounts transferred were less than Rs. 10 lakh so as to avoid
suspicion by the security and intelligence agencies, the sources said.
On the periphery
Meanwhile, highly placed government sources
said the Army would remain on the periphery and secure the ingress routes
and not get into the interior areas of Kashmir where there was concentration
of civilian population,
The Army would not be staging any flag march
as the demonstration had a different connotation. "The Army is on a standby,"
the sources added.
Army sources clarified that what took place
in Srinagar was a movement of a convoy that could not be confused with a flag
march, which would mean that military personnel staging a march in trouble-torn
areas. It was made clear that the Army would not be deployed to control the
crowd, a task best left to the police to handle. The argument was that since
the Army is trained to kill, any retaliatory action in the face of stone-throwing
by the people will result in greater loss of lives.
