Ahead Of Polls, Terror Grips Valley

The night of February 28 saw security forces unleash a barrage of gunfire to take down suspected Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militants in Handwara’s Baba Gund village.

- Asit Jolly and Moazum Mohammad

Following a prolonged lull in the firing the next afternoon, the army, the CRPF and police personnel, believing the JeM men to be dead, began searching the encounter site. Suddenly, a militant sprang out of the debris of a house and opened fire, killing five security personnel, including a CRPF inspector. The gunfight continued for 56 hours until the two militants were neutralised on March 3.

Baba Gund is the fifth encounter since the Pulwama terror attack. With the count at 56 (12 after Pulwama) this year, the security forces have not only lost more men than the militants but it is also the biggest loss of uniformed personnel since 2002.

These incidents point to the increasing presence of Pakistan-trained JeM and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants in the Valley. Four days after the Pulwama attack, on February 18, five security personnel, including 33-year-old Major Vibhuti Shankar Dhoundial, were killed in Pinglena, Pulwama, in what is being described as the “fiercest encounter since Operation All Out” in 2017. Three JeM fighters, including two highly trained Pakistani marksmen and a local, were killed. Of the 46 militants killed this year, 14 of the 18 eliminated after the Pulwama blast belonged to the JeM, including, says the army, a key conspirator in the Pulwama attack— Mudasir Khan of Kashmir’s Tral area.