In the month of October, Jammu and Kashmir reported 44 killings in total which included 19 militants, 13 civilians and 12 armed forces personnel. The past month has been a difficult time for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The innocent civilians have increasingly lost their lives, as violence has gripped the disputed Union Territory.
On October 16, 30-year-old Arvind Kumar Sah, a resident of the Banka area in Bihar, was shot dead at Eidgah in Srinagar by militants. Saghir Ahmad, 53, a resident of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, was killed on the same day at Litter village in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The series of killings was followed on October 5 with Virender Paswan, 55, from Bihar, who was killed at Medina market at Lal Bazaar hours soon after the killing of famous chemist ML Bindroo inside his shop.
The overarching opinion in political circles is that the recent killings are the consequence of an increasing sense of fear regarding demographic changes by the Centre. “Political violence in India is intimately tied to a demographic imagination […] In Kashmir, the fear of altering demography after the abrogation of Article 370 has been palpably real,” wrote Pratap Bhanu Mehta in the Indian Express on October 10.
There is also a feeling that the gruesome situation in the Union territory is influenced by the rule of the Taliban’s in Afghanistan. “The killings are aimed at using the Taliban victory in Afghanistan to give new impetus to the separatist movement. They seek to undermine the government’s claims that the scrapping of Article 370 and removal of statehood have brought normalcy and ensure the (half-hearted) official initiatives to resettle Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley and encourage external investment come to nought” states Manoj Joshi for the Indian Cable.
Gautam Mukhopadhyaya, a former Indian Ambassador to multiple countries says, “I am worried that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the military takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban with the support of Pakistan will give a fillip to radical Islamist sentiments and anti-Indian sentiments in J&K. It is not yet clear though if the recent attacks against soft minority targets are related to that or not. Either way, we should be on guard from a security point of view and at the same time address the political alienation in the state”.
Experts are divided on whether the Union territory is returning to the horrific militancy phase of the 1990s. Tara Kartha, who served in India’s National Security Secretariat, does not think Jammu and Kashmir is returning to the 1990s. She says, “The ground realities have shifted considerably. The separatists have lost their edge, and the politicians have largely, lost credibility among the people. But precisely given this lack of alternatives, there is a likelihood of more youth getting drifting into militancy”.
Either way, the Militancy in Jammu and Kashmir is far from over and the Union territory has a long winter ahead!