Jammu & Kashmir: Violence Returns

The recent infiltration bid has raised fears of militancy rearing its head again in Kashmir

- Tariq Bhat

A river runs through Keran village, so does the Line of Control (LoC). What Pakistan calls daryayi (river) Neelum becomes the Kishanganga in India. The village, however, has the same name on both sides of the border. In other areas along the LoC, the Kishanganga separates Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK) from Jammu and Kashmir; in Keran, the river is fully in PoK. Hence, since the 1990s, Keran has been one of the preferred entry points into Kashmir for militants. Usually, they cross the river and scale the Shamshabari mountain range to sneak in.

On April 1, five heavily armed militants entered Keran in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district. The Army, however, trapped them in a gorge between the LoC and the mountains. The five-day-long Operation Rangdori Behak ended with the killing of the militants. The Army lost five men of 4 Para (Special Forces)—Subedar Sanjeev Kumar, Havildar Davendra Singh, Paratrooper Bal Krishan, Paratrooper Amit Kumar, and Paratrooper Chhatrapal Singh. The last four hours of the operation saw close-quarters combat so intense that the bodies of the fallen soldiers and the infiltrators lay only a few feet apart. The Army recovered five AK-47 rifles, two under-barrel grenade launchers, two pistols, ammunition, satellite radio, medicines including morphine and dry rations including figs, cashew nuts, and Tang drink mix.

While the Army has a network of sensors, thermal imagers and long-range observation radars along the LoC, sources said the inclement weather and mountainous terrain helped the militants this time. Heavy snowfall often damaged fences, they said.