From Indias largest newsroom, I'm Arun George and this is the
Times of India podcast. At least nine people were killed
when a bus they were travelling in was attacked by terrorists in
the Ryasi district of Jammu on the 9th of June.
The nine people were part of a larger group who were travelling
in the bus when it was attacked. At least thirty of those people
travelling on the bus were injured.
Shakir Mir, who writes on Jammu and Kashmir for TOI Plus,
explains what happened. So basically when we talk about
Riasi, we're talking about the the mountainous parts of Jammu,
which are collectively called the peer Punjal region.
They formed the the greater Himalayas that divide Kashmir
valley from Jammu and at the same time these mountain jet out
into the Pakistani side. So Ryasis is a place that is
tucked away in these mountains. So when we talk about on the
road on which it happened, it was a link road which led to
that highway, National Highway 144.
It connected two places with each other.
One was the Shivkhori shrine, which is the Shiva shrine in the
Jammu where a lot of Hindu pilgrims come to pay homage to
the the Katra region of the Jammu region where we know the
famous Mata Vaishno Devi shrine is located.
The pilgrims like close to 40 or over 40 in numbers.
But travelling in the bus which was coming down all its way down
to Katra region, midway through his journey, it passed through a
place which is really desolate. The roads are good, but one side
there's a deep George, there's a deep defile and on the other
side we see mountainous outcrops, forests and
everything. But this isn't entirely petrol
because Jammu is a vast region. You know, it's not possible for
it to be petrol throughout. Pervasive petroling is not
possible. Nobody lives there.
There are just towns here and scattered over here and there.
And it's so dense. I mean, I spoke to the officials
who have been serving in the Jammu region.
They told me that it's, the region is such a dense, the
vegetation is so dense that you can't even see, even in Kashmir,
it's possible to see through the vegetation.
You know, it's very sparse, but in those regions that the
vegetation is so thick that you can't even see after like 3
meters or two meters. So that topography is itself
conducive for militancy. You know, militants, militants
have off late realized that we can leverage this kind of
topography to stage attacks. Just as when the bus was driving
through this area, the militants have like they were waiting and
they were prowling and when the vehicle was approaching, they
have come down, They have sprayed bullets all over the
vehicle. The police officers were there
on the ground told me the first bullet hit the forehead of the
driver. So he was he was the first to be
shot and then he lost control of the bus.
The bus wheeled away from the road and directly fell into the
defile. Then the militants came again
from behind and they continue to spray bullets on the bus because
eyewitnesses have described how bullets continue to rain over
them. 11 particular eyewitness said that it was it was like a
relentless hail bullets that was pelting down upon the bus
endlessly. So it it wasn't just Milton's
attack the bus and lost control and people died.
They they made sure that even after the bus plunges into the
George, they kept firing at the bus with an intention to kill
the pilgrims, which is very clear.
The attack is one of the most dramatic attacks in Jammu, a
region that Shakir says has seen a spike in terror attacks over
the past few years. In today's episode when
conversation with Shakir Mir about the implications of the
Riasi attack and other terror attacks in the region.
In the past week, there have been 4 terror attacks in three
days in Jammu. One CRPF jawan was killed and
six security personnel were injured in two gun battles with
terrorists in the Kathua and Doda districts.
Shakur explains how the epicenter of these more dramatic
terror attacks may have shifted from Kashmir to Jammu.
He also explains how the terrorists involved and the
weaponry they're using has changed.
We started by talking about the Ryasi attack, in which the
militants attacked a bus. Filled with pilgrims.
Remember, Shakira had pointed out how it's difficult to patrol
the region given the terrain, but have pilgrims ever been
targeted in this manner before? So when you say that this road
is also not highly protected in the sense of relentless
patrolling, but is this an area that has seen a lot of attacks
before? Have we seen such attacks on
pilgrims of this scale before? Probably in the 90s, we have a
reference of massacre of the Hindu civilians ahead and there
in the Jammu region but not in the recent times except except
in April 2022 when when militants planted a sticky bomb
on a bus ferrying pilgrims from Qatra to Jammu region.
The bus went up in flames and that which resulted in the in
the death of old pilgrims because they were en route to
the Mata Vaishudhvi Shine Base camp.
For a few days police thought that this is an accident but
later the investigation showed that no, that sticky bomb had
had been stuck to the bus and it was as a result of that bomb.
It was a result of that incident that people died eventually.
So that was the last time we have had such an incident in
which pilgrims were specifically targeted.
You spoke about the sort of link that the mountains have to
Pakistan and though therefore it's used as a sort of route for
militancy. Could you talk about terrorism
in Jammu and does the region typically see these sort of
attacks? You know when we talk about
overall militancy, terrorism situation in Kashmir, we talk,
we have always been talking about in reference to Kashmir
valley and not in Jammu. Even though in 90s we saw that
militancy had flared up in Jammu region.
But that was a brief interlude. We can say given the larger
trajectory of turmoil in Kashmir post 2019, we saw a very
calibrated attempt by the militant groups to escalate the
militant activities in the Jammu region.
It looks like a very calibrated, very calculated strategy on part
of their handlers. It started with October 2021
when there was a 19 day encounter.
It was the longest ever encounter that we have seen in
the recent times. It's a lot of surprise.
The security agencies, you know how how the encounter could
stretch for this long in Kashmir.
Then the most an encounter can last is like one day or 1 1/2
day. But 19 days it stretched
together 9 to 11 casualties were there from the security forces
side. And a lot of analysts were
saying that you know, this is not a good sign because because
this means that something is in the offing.
This is never seen before. And exactly that happened.
I made a, you know, I, I was because I was, I was closely
tracking these incidents. So I made a list of like
fourteen such big events that have happened since that that
October 2021 attack. The first was the the same case
sticky bomb in which the Hindu pilgrims died.
The second was the April 2022 encounter in which there was a
fidane attack on on Prime Minister because he was visiting
the region at that time. So two suspected militants were
killed at associated with the Jesh Muhammad were killed at
that time. In the same year, we saw
detonators were found in the Sidra region of the Punch
district. In March 2022, there was an IED
blast in Salatya choke in Udampur in which one person died
and 14 were injured. You know, after that we saw the
carnage in Dangri. Dangri is a place in in Rajouri
region. It happened on the Navy year's
eve in 2022 in which 7 Hindu civilians were killed by the
militants. And then recently there was an
attack on a VDG village Defence Guard member.
And and last year has been particularly very brutal because
we saw four different attacks. In each of these attacks, we saw
five CRPF jawans or Army jawans losing their lives, totaling 20.
So overall we see that there has been close to 40 security
related casualties since October 2021, of which 20 alone, 20 plus
alone have taken place in this this area, accounting for more
than 50% of total killings in 2023, which again means that the
violence, the theatre of violence has decisively shifted
from Kashmir to the Jammu region.
And in the past, I think almost a year or two bank, we've spoken
about, you know, how you explained to us how terrorism in
Kashmir had changed into these smaller, less dramatic attacks,
which are very focused with very focused targets.
The ones that we're seeing in Jammu, in like Syria Sea and
even in Kathua, they're not minor in using small weapons
like the ones we spoke about with regard to Kashmir, right?
Yeah, exactly. In fact, Indian Express did a
report last year in which they said that now Jammu is the site
of high high impact, high intensity violent targets.
Even though even though Kashmir may witness more militancy
related incidents in number, but the high impact, high intensity
targets which involve more planning, which are all more
ammunition, which all involve more casualties.
They are taking place in Jammu region rather than in Kashmir.
By evaluating the kind of nature of attacks that are taking
place, it's clear that the bulk of them are taking place in the
Jammu region rather than in Kashmir.
In Kashmir, we'll occasionally see 11 militant with a pistol
shooting at a cop or a member of minority member members or
somebody who's accused of being an informer or alleged informer.
The high intensity attacks are in the Jammu region, which
actually tells us a lot about the changing dynamics of
militancy in Kashmir. Shaki says that unlike in
Kashmir, the recent attacks in Jammu seem to have been carried
out in areas with militants, knowing that it's more difficult
to have perpetual monitoring in these regions.
Unlike Kashmir where you see security forces on a perpetual
hunt for militants and eventually finding them out and
and encounter taking place, in Jammu it's reverse.
The initiative is resting with the militants.
We always see that it's the militants who initiate the
strike. When you kill a security force
member or when you kill a villager, when you kill a
Pilgrim, it will take at least given the vastness of the area
and given the roads and everything, it will take at
least an hour for the reinforcements to arrive.
Militant groups know this very well.
So they know that this is very conducive for them to wait these
low cost operations in the Jammu side.
Indriya see, at least the militants who involved escaped
after the attacks, but do we know anything about who was
involved as of now? Police and security forces are
saying that it's the PAFF and TRF, these two organizations are
taking responsibility, but they're both the fronts for
already established militant groups like Lashkar E Taiba and
Jaish E Muhammad. So Jaish is particularly the the
organization which is involved in these in these killings.
So, so my sources told me that it's particularly the man named
Sajid Jatt which is responsible. He's a Pakistani, he's what
security forces called FT foreign terrorist.
He has a Kashmiri wife. She's based in the Kulgam region
of South Kashmir. He is the one who is who is
remote controlling all these operations, who is sending more
and more men into into Kashmir. They're mostly Pakistani
nationals. You know, there's not a single
Kashmiri national who we have seen participating in these kind
of attacks. Last month when we saw the
attack on the IF convoy in, in, in, in Jammu, we there were
videos of circulating about men, random men who who who fully
suspected where the militants. They were clearly looking that
they were outsiders. It is clearly those groups
associated with what they call PF people's anti fascist front.
That is the new nomenclature that they adopted.
But security forces say that they are the proxies are the
fronts for the already established militant groups like
Jaish E Muhammad. So these are the ones who are
responsible for these attacks. And in Kathua in for the two men
who carried out the attacks, the two gunmen were also killed.
Is there anything that we know about them so far?
Again, we they're Pakistani nationals, it's clear from their
get up and lot of weaponry and lot of items have been seized
from them. The food items which have the
labels made in Pakistan labels, those have been recovered.
The bullets and ammunitions have been recovered.
Interestingly, M4 rifles which the US made weapon which many
security analysts suspect were are the same weapons that were
left in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal and now are being
used by the militant groups operating in Kashmir.
Never before have these weapons been used against civilians or
against security forces. You know, police officers told
me this is the first occasion when this US made weapon has
been used against security forces and against the Indian
nationals in in Kashmir region. In fact, there's a recent press
conference in which the DGP, the Director General of Police of
J&K, said that our focus is now more on the Pakistani foreign
militants than on the Kashmiri based militant groups because
because the former has outnumbered the the latter
because we now have more foreign militants here rather than the
local ones whose recruitment has come down significantly in the
last five years. But with the sudden speed of
attacks in Jammu specifically, there was a lull in at least the
reporting of such incidents during and prior to the
elections. Has something changed on the
ground? Like is this normally when we
see a sort of spike in attacks? What is there any explanation
for why we're seeing the sudden surge?
So this has been a very in the discussion among the security
circles before that whether or not the militants or the
handlers have the wherewithal to carry out attack time with big
events in India. I have been covering insurgency
for like 5 years now. In 2022, I remember Home
minister, Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited Kashmir and
suddenly Kashmir was that. That visit happened in October
and throughout August, July, it was a peaceful but once the home
minister's visit, he was drawing close.
There was a certain escalation of the militancy related
attacks. So somehow there's this
speculation that militants are able to sort of tap into their
networks and sort of escalate the attack to time them with the
big events taking place just to send a message across.
What the new modus operandi of militants, especially those who
are coming from Pakistan is that one, not to use any kind of
digital communications. Second, not to rely on any of
the Overground workers. Ogws were also, which is the
security parlance for the militant associates, the non
combatant participants in the militant tax who do the other
kind of work, but don't take actual part in the militancy,
just help militants with food and shelter and everything.
So they say that don't use don't rely on the Ogws who are indexed
by the security forces already and don't use the digital
communication. So when your strategy is this is
pivoted on these two things, you can't coordinate it better.
You you will have to sort of prolong your operations and it
does not guarantee that you have selected this date for a
particular attack and the attack will take place On this date
only. It's not every time that the
militants can succeed in attacking it, just in one of the
10 attempts that they make that that will succeed.
So this is what has happened in, in Katwa, in in Ryazi.
And Shankar, finally, could you talk about the worries with this
sudden jump in attacks and has there been any visible change in
policy in the region because of these attacks?
So I don't think there isn't going to be any change in
policy. In fact, it it suits the
political messaging of the of the Prime Minister that that he
will sort of give it back to the to the militant groups and their
handlers. So I don't know what will happen
what how the Indian security forces are going to respond to
this. Typically what we expect is that
they will ramp up the operations, the search
operations and upon being found, they will they will execute the
militants who are responsible for this, which has happened
previously. So what we have seen in the last
five years is that sustained clampdown in Kashmir on what,
what the security forces described as the terror
ecosystem in which we have arrests, raids, banning of the
outlawing of the large number of groups continuously people
associated whoever some kind of past are being dismissed from
the garment service, their passports are being denied.
So this sustained clampdown as such remilitarization of Kashmir
at a lot of places. So this sustained clampdown has
sort of put pressure on the militant groups in Kashmir to
operate. So what they are doing is that
they are they are making a strategy.
You know, they are ratcheting up the attacks in Jammu region,
they're escalating the, the violence in the Jammu region so
that they can pin down the Indian forces in those areas so
they can drive away all the attention from Kashmir into
those areas. And then what happens that will
that will slacken the security grip on Kashmir.
You know, this is the vision in mind to slacken the security
grip in Kashmir so that things could be escalated in Kashmir as
and when it appears conducive to the militant handle list.
So this is the larger what security analyst here suspect
could be the larger game plan in in trying to make Jammu the new
hotbed of insurgency. Today's episode was produced by
Jayaraj Singh and Sahil Gupta. For a daily spotlight on people,
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For any new steps of feedback, mail me at
arungeorge@timesgroup.com.