No quarter for militants

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI, JUNE 23. Notwithstanding the note of restraint that has crept in the Foreign Office pronouncements in the context of the coming summit between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf, the security forces are going ahead with their brief of going after the militants in Jammu and Kashmir. According to one count, till June 22, as many as 252 militants have been `neutralised'.

The security forces are operating on the assumption that the various militant outfits would not allow themselves to be slowed down by the proposed Summit; in fact, these outfits would be expected to try to stage one or two `spectacular' operations. The Amar Nath Yatra would provide the militants a soft target.

Again, notwithstanding the mutual restraint implied in the proposed Summit, the officials point out that the last few weeks have seen `unprecedented pressure' on the Line of Control as well as on the international border in terms of infiltration. This `influx' explains the fact that the security forces have managed to kill a number of gangs of infiltrators.

The various militant groups continue to operate as if they do not care for the Pakistani leader's attempt to seek peace with this country, and have expressed themselves against the Summit. However, according to some officials, this posture could also be part of a very clever pretence, whereby Islamabad can persist with the fiction that it had little control over the activities of the militant outfits.

Also the militant outfits are being seen as desperate to dampen the Kashmiri public's expectations about the Summit. They continue to strive to strike; perhaps with the hope that the security forces would over-react, inflicting major human rights violations. In any case continuing violence keeps up the rhetoric of `freedom movement' and discounts the idiom of dialogue and reason, implicit in the Vajpayee-Musharraf summit.

Given this thinking, the security forces are under instructions not to give any quarter to the militants. There is no scope for confusion; the quest for peace does not mean dilution in the fight against terrorism, it is pointed out. There is no intention to concede even anything before the Pakistani leader's visit, especially if the militant outfits are not showing any restraint. Indeed they continue with their terrorist business, as evident in the aborted attempt on the life of the Union Minister of State, Mr. Omar Abdullah. In particular, the Indian officials do not want Islamabad to draw any inference that there is any tiredness with the fight against the militants, talibanised or otherwise.

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