There have been attempts at intrusion into more than one-third of the camps of the Central Reserve Police Force in the Kashmir Valley in the past 50 days, a senior Home Ministry official said on Wednesday.
The CRPF has been redeployed in at least 40 locations in Kashmir, including Srinagar, from where the force was withdrawn in 2010 as a confidence-building measure.
The official said that of the 600 camps in the Valley, 242 have been attacked or targeted for intrusion.
A CRPF official posted in Srinagar said the camps were bursting at the seams as 700 companies (approximately 70,000 men) had been deployed in the Valley.
“This type of organised attack was not there in 2010, the last time the Valley erupted in violence. Already 242 camps have been attacked and we have taken extra measures to secure the premises,” said the official.
Though curfew has been lifted in the Valley, stone-throwing at security personnel have not stopped.
“After the 2010 violence, when more than 100 protesters were killed in police firing, it was decided that the number of boots on the ground should be reduced as a peace measure. We are back at the very posts from where we had withdrawn,” the official said.
Till August 22, 2,083 CRPF jawans were injured in stone-throwing and 47 in grenade attacks.
“The injuries in the past few days are more than the 1,755 reported in 2010. The situation in the Valley remained more or less peaceful with few incidents of stone-pelting reported from 2011 to 2015. The Jammu and Kashmir Police also have reported over 3,000 injuries. Most jawans have disfigured faces now,” the official said.
“There is no place to sleep in the camps. Though we have made arrangements, the nights are particularly chilly and jawans cannot spend nights in the open. We are running our camps from abandoned buildings,” the official said.
At least 60 companies of the CRPF deployed for the Amarnath Yatra, which concluded on August 18, have been sent to the Valley.
