Taking Down Terrorist Leaders Is Smart And Effective Move To Counter Terrorism In Kashmir

It's a common phenomenon in counter terror operations that most officials and units of the security forces love doing a bean count about the number of terrorists they have killed. Commanders judge the future of their careers often on the basis of such bean count. Senior functionaries too inquire when being briefed during visits and the good old Sholay type of dialogue is common in such visits to units; ‘kitne bandey maare’ or ‘how many kills?’.

No one usually looks at the quality of the achievement but the numbers. There are riff raff terrorists galore in the Valley, all yesterday’s recruits with a life cycle of no more than three to six months. Burhan Wani's entire 11-12 man gang famously photographed and displayed on social media was neutralised in less than two years.

Why the above preamble? It's essential to drive home the importance of the latest achievement by the armed forces, the killing of Abu Dujana.

A Pakistani national from Gilgit Baltistan, which falls in India's claimed territory, Dujana has been active from my time in 2010. That is the year he infiltrated from PoK and very soon dis(played his prowess in North Kashmir as an organiser, coordinator and motivator.

There are always some such personalities in all walks of life including criminal and terrorist ranks, people born to be leaders. He later shifted base and focus to south Kashmir becoming the Lashkar e Taiba's (LeT's) division commander for that area. He is known to have organised the ambushes on the Central Reserve Police Force bus at Pampore and the Border Security Force convoy near Udhampur. He had acquired the reputation of being a doer, and his repeated escapes from the security force dragnets gave him a larger than life profile.

Neutralising such a terrorist makes a quantum difference in the dilution of terrorist capability. A new leader has no doubt already emerged, but he is going to remain a learner for quite some time. In the process, he will make mistakes, and each mistake will cost his group casualties. Smart counter terror commanders therefore always focus on the leadership because that upsets terrorist plans and capability. The recruits fall into your lap quite by default.

One of the major reasons for a drastic reduction in terror activities in 2012 was the sharp focus with which the Army and Jammu Kashmir police pursued the terrorist leadership in both north and south Kashmir in the preceding year 2011. In that calendar year, 19 top terrorist leaders were killed. Among those killed was Abdullah Uni, the Pakistani LeT leader again with a charmed life and highly developed leadership capability and a Rs 10 lakh bounty on his head. He had even met with a motor cycle accident near an Army patrol and was unknowingly helped by the jawans to get to his feet, dusted and sent on his way. That is because no one seemed to recognise him and he was a master of disguise.

The experience of all this led some of our outstanding field commanders to form terrorist hunting teams in conjunction with the Jammu and Kashmir police's Special Operations Group (SOG) and intelligence operatives of various agencies including military intelligence. These teams devoured information on a single terrorist leader, recognised him in different photo shopped disguises and followed his every communication. In fact, we gave them as far leeway as to avoid even considering operations against other terrorists so that the focus did not dwindle. There can be no better lesson from this than the need for absolute cooperation between different forces in the field.

When the cooperation completely overshadows competition you have a winning combination. I suspect that is exactly what has been achieved by the current forces in south Kashmir with high-level cooperation and team functioning. That is why we just can't afford to have negative incidents of the kind witnessed at Gund police station in Ganderbal where some Rashtriya Rifles (RR) officers and men attempted to ride roughshod over personnel of the JK Police. The harm such incidents do is sometimes beyond repair.

Abu Dujana was human enough to progress along expected lines in his image creation and self-perception. That is why it is good to cultivate an opinion in the public that such a terrorist leader has the respect of the security forces because of his tactical ability and wiliness. It does not take long for that leader to become larger than life. Once that happens his first vulnerability opens up, the first chink in his armour.

Dujana's several escapes facilitated by intervention by mobs further added to his self-confidence and stardom. His carnal desires became those of a chieftain. I am sure with the temptation of money, and a fair amount more than the declared bounty, there would be sufficient people around him willing to sell him. That's when his end was virtually signed, his death warrant issued. He died caught in a paramour's house; the one also claimed to be his wife. The mobs couldn't save him this time because the CRPF has in conjunction with other forces found ways of keeping them away.

What will be the effect of the death of a high profile terrorist leader such as Abu Dujana on operations?

Be assured the terrorists will make every effort to seek revenge and do that early enough. That is what the security forces must cash on. There will be a lot of movement of terrorists in south Kashmir to prevent leakage of intelligence on their presence in known hot spots. That's where the local CID comes in. Its effectiveness in obtaining timely and actionable intelligence must be exploited through very close coordination between the forces.

Secondly, with so much going on in establishing total control over financial networks, it's time to remind that money plays a significant role in intelligence and that directly leads to success in operations. Control the flow of illegitimate money, and a separatist terrorist movement is starved out. Neither can separatist leaders, nor high profile terrorists live without luxuries of power that money brings

An additional fallout of this achievement coupled with more success through the next three months will be a desperation to infiltrate more high profile terrorists who can assume the mantle of leadership. That is when the Army will have to exercise full effectiveness and ensure a deployed counter infiltration grid to beat the infiltration attempts, even into early winter. There is risk there which has to be managed.

Lastly, success in counter terrorist operations is a heady thing which promotes complacency and gives a perception of premature victory. We have been through this cycle many times. The necessity of information and outreach operations must not be lost from sight. It's comprehensive success that the state is seeking and that needs to be reminded ever so often, especially when a campaign becomes as long as the Jammu and Kashmir campaign has been in place.