Fearing stepped up activities after two top militant commanders drafted ‘Operation Tiger’, the Jammu & Kashmir police have asked its personnel “to desist from visiting their families in south Kashmir for the next few months”.
‘Impending threat’
A communiqué, issued by the police brass and accessed by The Hindu , has asked police heads to brief their personnel regarding “the impending threat to ensure life and property of police personnel is well secured”. It has directed policemen “to exercise extreme caution while visiting their homes.”
“Policemen should preferably avoid visiting their homes for the next few months as their security is of paramount importance,” it read.
Police sources said two top commanders of the Hizbul Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Taiba held a meeting in Pulwama’s Koil recently to finalise their new strategy “to go after the local policemen”.
According to police investigations, handlers across the Line of Control have given their nod to start ‘Operation Tiger’ focusing on attacks on policemen. Militants have already heightened activities against policemen.
On Saturday night, suspected militants barged into the houses of two policemen and ransacked households in Shopian district. Police sources said the policemen were taken inside local mosques “to announce their decision to quit the police service, while asking the locals not to joins the police ranks”.
For the first time since militancy broke out in Kashmir in 1989, militants entered the houses of over six policemen, including two Deputy Inspector General-rank officers, and warned their families of consequences “if the police officers try to harass the families of militants”. The militants are pressuring the police to distance itself from operations against militant outfits, said a police officer.
Meanwhile, in the past 24 hours, militants released two videos showing a mainstream political leader and a traders’ body head distancing themselves from any mainstream political party.
“It’s dirty politics. People are dying and losing their eyesight. I beg your pardon. I will never join politics,” said a PDP worker in south Kashmir in an undated video.
Another video shows a Pulwama trader quitting the local traders’ federation, while raising slogans in favour of Islam and freedom.
PDP worker Bashir Ahmad Dar, who owned a medical shop, was killed on Saturday night and another was injured in Pulwama. Unidentified gunmen on Sunday beat up PDP workers in Anantnag’s Kokernag too.
