New year came with the saddest news once again, another terrorist attack shattered once again claims of normalcy. This time terrorist chose the far off area of Rajouri, four deaths and many injured. The mercenaries of death very well knew the topography of the area as they came, verified the identity of victims and vanished into forests once heinous crime was accomplished. The way terrorists are striking at will these days is a serious matter. Despite earlier incidents of terrorism in same belt and Bhatta Durian encounter, we learnt no lessons. It is a well known fact that these cowards always look out for soft targets and despite being first day of New Year no precautionary measure was at place, police caught again off guard with the result innocent lost their lives. It is true police cannot provide individual security to everyone but SOPs have to be followed at any cost, but were definitely ignored in the entire belt for quite a time now. There is no harm in putting certain checkpoints or curbs as a precautionary measure but nothing of this sort was done. More astonishing is the fact that terrorists identified the victims through Aadhaar card, once again old time methods to identify minority adopted and cold bloodedly gunned down. More far reaching is the fact that arms and ammunition of VDC members were taken away by police never to be returned back, who ordered this and why? Forces cannot reach every nook and corner of far flung areas, the onus of protecting minorities lies with these VDCs but off late instead of further strengthening them authorities have downgraded their presence and now paid the price. Once again intelligence failure as such time to further fine tune CID team of the area. Another serious lapse on part of police and security forces is they didn’t sanitise the premises of the victims with the result IED blast in one of the houses very next day and another unexploded found, just puts serious question mark on the working of local police. We are dealing with the most professional mercenaries of terrorism as such we can never afford to lower our guard at any moment. Last few months there are enough warning bells ringing from almost all districts of Jammu Division, time and again terrorists made their presence felt in one way or another but we were denying depredation tooth and nail. Gone are days of staid methods, they are not going to work anymore, progenies of terrorism are ruthless and don’t deserve any relaxation from the security agencies. In a single day terrorists gunned down four, snatched CRPF man’s rifle in Kashmir and live mortar shell found near Samba railway station, these three areas are hundreds of kilometers away from each other but the message is same, terrorism is still alive and striking at will. Enough indicators are there that enemy is desperately trying to keep terrorism alive and counter measures have to be put into place. Another serious aspect in this whole episode is despite a fully operational GMC Rajouri yet victims had to be airlifted to GMC Jammu, why? Mere buildings are not specialised hospitals and repeatedly all these new GMCs are performing as referral hospitals.
The irreparable damage has been done, bandhs and compensation announced but accountability remains to be fixed. Our police is capable enough to counter any terrorist threat as such anyone found not up to the mark should be shunted out. Simply giving statements, self patting and then waiting for terrorists to strike again is no strategy at all and has to be reviewed as per present situation. Our forces are seasoned fighters and will definitely take course correction to thwart this terrorism wave also. It’s time for CASO and house to house verification. We may eliminate the perpetrators of this incident but more has to be done. We have to accept problem is there and ignoring an imminent threat is not going to work anymore.
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