Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Oct 16: The infiltration of militants into Kashmir valley has gone up this year despite Army being on high alert along the Line of Control (LoC) and militants are making desperate attempts to sneak in even after surgical strikes conducted by Special Forces of Army in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) last month.
According to Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) figures, 83 militants, mostly belonging to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), have infiltrated into Kashmir this year till August while last year the number was 35 for the whole year.
However, a senior security force officer said that it is a conservative estimate and the figure could be higher than official figure as since July 8, after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen Commander, Burhan Wani, the security agencies are not getting accurate picture about recently infiltrated militants.
The officer said that some of the recently infiltrated groups are yet to come under security forces radar. Some of these militants are still in North Kashmir’s forest areas near the LoC while others have managed to reach the hinterland unnoticed.
The infiltration attempts are still going on despite the surgical strikes against the militant launch pads in PoK at Dudniyal in Kail, Neelam, Leepa, Bhimber and Tata Pani. At Dudniyal in Kail area, the LeT suffered major damage where lot of their cadre who were planning to infiltrate were killed.
Sources said that despite the surgical strikes the militant training camps are still active in PoK with 19 of them most active including those at Skardu, Kel, Karko, Dullu, Titwal, Chakoti, Kotli, Dehri, Barhal Mirpur and Chaprai. In these training camps, the militants are receiving rigorous training besides map reading, GPS use, weight, weapon and tactical training.
They said that over 200 militants are still waiting at launch pads for infiltration before the onset of winter but now they are alert. The militant leaders want to push in more infiltrators this year ahead of winter as security forces achieved major success against militants this year by eliminating over 115 of them so far.
Army has intensified its vigil along the LoC and already two Brigades of Army have been sent to LoC in North Kashmir to take on the infiltrated militants and one more Brigade of Army has been sent to South Kashmir after increased militancy in the area.
Militants taking advantage of the unrest have recruited locals into militancy and have activated their Over Ground Workers (OGWs) as well. The involvement of locals into militancy is a major challenge for the security agencies.
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