Days after the fidayeen attack by the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) in Pulwama on Saturday, pro-Afzal Guru slogans have been found scrawled at the encounter site. Police view this as Jaish’s “bid to announce its comeback in mainland Kashmir”, from where it had been eliminated in 2014.
A top police official confirmed to The Hindu that the three fidayeen militants who had stormed the District Police Line (DPL), Pulwama, on Saturday had used charcoal to write slogans in favour of Guru, who had been executed for his role in the Parliament attack in 2013.
Starting with “AGS (Afzal Guru Squad)”, the slogan written inside one of the burnt DPL complexes read, “Afzal Guru ka intikaam” (Revenge of Afzal Guru). Eight security personnel had been killed in this attack.
Fourth instance
This is the fourth time that the JeM has used the site of an attack to mention Guru’s name, in an attempt to refer to the Al-Shohada Brigade or Shaheed Afzal Guru Squad, formed by the organisation that reportedly carries out “suicide missions only”.
Earlier, similar pro-Guru graffiti had been found at the encounter sites in Pathankot and Nagrota in 2016. In Afghanistan, after India’s consulate in Mazar-e-Sharif was attacked in 2016, similar graffiti had been found at the site, with a slogan written in blood claiming “revenge for Afzal Guru”.
“A majority of Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Toiba militants have gone into hiding in the upper reaches of south Kashmir, and are banking on the JeM cadre. Our investigations reveal that the Jaish cadre has taken a leading role in carrying out strikes the government forces,” said Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, Muneer Khan.
Another senior official of the counter-insurgency cell said that the deadly Pulwama attack is the first by the JeM in mainland Kashmir in the past three years. “The attack was meant to announce its comeback in the Valley, from where it had been wiped out in 2014, either through the killing or arrest of its 16 members,” a top counter-insurgency official said.
Director General of Police, J&K, S P Vaid said that “small groups” of JeM militants “have infiltrated into Kashmir with the sole objective of carrying out suicide attacks on security establishments.”
It was on December 5, 2014 that the JeM's ‘Guru squad’ carried out its first fidayeen attack on Mohura camp in Uri, near the Line of Control (LoC), which left 17 dead, including 11 security personnel. Later, the group carried out similar attacks against army installations in Uri and Tanghdar.
According to the police records, all the top Jaish militants had been eliminated in south and north Kashmir by October 2015, following the killing of Jaish handlers, Adil Pathan and Chota Burmi.
