A horrendous episode

THE GUNNING DOWN of 15 persons by unidentified militants on August 3 night in Jammu and Kashmir, coming as it did in less than a fortnight of an equally horrendous episode, is a cause for grave concern. For one, the timing of the attack - eve of Rakshabhandan and conclusion of the Amarnath Yatra - and the religious identity of the target group - all belonged to the minority community in the State - clearly point to a devious design of the jehadi elements; namely, to create communal disharmony in a region like the Doda district which had a substantial proportion of Hindu population. For another, the fact that the militants could perpetrate a massacre for the second time in two weeks and in the same region - and, worse, get away with it - exposes gaping holes in the security apparatus and related systems, besides indicating who is calling the shots. That the police were totally in the dark about the killings until informed the next day by one of the few who survived the attack is in itself an eloquent testimony to the `efficiency' of whatever intelligence mechanism is supposed to be in operation in the problem State.

Predictably, the Doda outrage has been vehemently deplored by one and all - from official India and political parties to the separatist umbrella outfit, the All Party Hurriyat Conference - for what it is: an act of barbarism and cowardliness targeting innocent civilians. Significant however is that not only has no militant outfit (as yet) owned up the Doda incident, but the pro- Pakistan secessionist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen have, in fact, denied their involvement and, what is more, have come out with a strong condemnation, saying Islam does not permit such killings. And this, of course, is in tune with the reaction of Islamabad which, apart from disapproving of the carnage, put out its own theory - that it was the handiwork of ``Indian agencies'' designed to ``defame the freedom fighters''. Such a construction may eminently fit into the consistent policy line Pakistan has been adopting on the `complexion' of the violence that has been bleeding Jammu and Kashmir. Given that Pakistan has always maintained, however untenably, that the Kashmiri insurgency is nothing but a `struggle for freedom', it will obviously be the height of folly on its part not to condemn the Doda-type savagery targeting civilians, or to admit of militants' hand in it. But the fact remains that militant groups, especially the mercenaries, have had no qualms about mounting such brutal attacks on soft targets, and the suggestion of a diabolical role for Indian agencies in the Doda episode is rather preposterous.

All this, however, does not in any way justify the skewed perspectives of the Atal Behari Vajpayee regime vis-a-vis the Kashmir imbroglio in general and the anti-insurgency campaign in particular. Take, for instance, the official response to the latest Doda carnage. On the administration front, there is going to be the much-too-familiar review of the security milieu at the highest level and the State Government is set to recruit more persons to the police force. More striking is the manifestly irresistable urge of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, to flaunt `Doda' as hard evidence to underscore India's `crossborder terrorism' line, rubbishing Pakistan's `freedom struggle' concept. Scoring diplomatic points is of course a part of the political game in the international arena. But it cannot be overstretched to become an obsession, much less played upon to a level at which the Centre's (and the State Government's) own responsibility in providing adequate security to the citizenry especially in a militancy-hit State like Jammu and Kashmir is given the go-by. It is time the Vajpayee administration appreciated the imperative of coming to terms with the basic concerns reltated to the alienation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, such as erosion of autonomy and the strongarm or oppressive methods the security forces tended to use in the name of combat operations against the insurgents.

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