NSG hub in Jammu: A step in the right direction

ISI declared 1995 to be the year of Jammu

Jammu NSG hub for reply to terror attacks

On November 26, 2024, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) took an important step aimed at strengthening the security grid in the strategic Jammu city and its outskirts. It set up permanently a hub of National Security Guards (NSG) in Jammu City to “counter any major terror attack” and formulated “a security plan” for high-rise buildings, security installations, and public places of sensitive nature in the City and its outskirts after security audit. It is a step in the right direction.

A report in this regard, inter-alia, read like this: “A special component of the NSG is now permanently in place in the Jammu City to act within minutes in case such a situation arises to take on the terrorists. The NSG hub was created in the City by the Union Home Ministry following terror attacks in different districts on security forces in the Jammu region and reports that the terrorists could also target the City…Previously, in case the necessity to call the NSG was felt to eliminate the terrorists involved in the attack, the NSG commandos had to be airlifted either from New Delhi or Chandigarh which was a time-consuming exercise. However, now the NSG commandos will be readily available in Jammu City…repeated security audits have been conducted by police mainly the SOG teams for all high-rise buildings, including shopping malls, cinema halls, security installations, government offices, and other places to prevent terror attacks, and if at all the terrorists manage to strike the immediate action to neutralize them…A detailed roadmap has been drafted…There have been a series of terror attacks this year targeting security forces in Kathua, Udhampur, Kishtwar, Doda, Jammu, Reasi, Rajouri, and Poonch districts in which a number of Bravehearts have sacrificed their lives. Many terrorists have also been killed in the operations…”

Rs.50 crore for blooding Jammu scene

It needs to be underlined that things in Jammu had started deteriorating and quickly appeared to be going the Kashmir way in the early 1990s. The fundamental factor: The Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) saboteurs, after wrecking the administration in the Kashmir Valley and disrupting its political and economic institutions, had turned their attention to what is also known as the City of Temples. A UNI report of January 31, 1995, quoting defence sources, had then said that the “ISI” had declared “1995 to be the year of the Jammu region” and that it had “with the help of the drug mafia in Pakistan, earmarked Rs.50 crore for creating disturbances and acts of sabotage in the Jammu region.” It also said that “a message intercepted from the ISI to the Hizbul Mujahideen stated that Rs.5 crore has been placed at the service of the suicide squads to eliminate the Director General of Police, Mr. M N Sabharwal, and Advisor to the Governor (Home), Lt General M A Zaki” and others.

Indeed, the situation had worsened to the extent that the militants were roaming freely in and around Jammu without bothering to conceal their identity. So much so, they were openly organizing meetings in certain religious places situated right in the heart of Jammu city, indulging in dangerous and insidious propaganda there and appealing to and exciting individual hopes. They were doing so to solicit the people’s support in favour of what they called “the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination.”

Two significant developments at Geneva

It is pertinent to mention here that the militants and their Pakistani sponsors had put Jammu on the top of their agenda since March 1994, when two highly significant developments took place at the Geneva UN Human Rights Commission conference. One was the withdrawal by Islamabad of the resolution on the alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir owing to the effective diplomacy of the Indian Foreign Office and other Indian leaders. The other was the role of the representatives of the European Union and certain non-government organizations. They had debunked the Pakistani no-holds-barred propaganda blitz that the entire population of the State wanted to break its connection with the “aggressor India” and proved with statistics that the secessionist violence in the State was confined to four towns in the Doda district of Jammu region and that all the troubles in Kashmir were the handiwork of a few Kashmiris, mostly Sunni.

Ever since the Geneva debacle, the ISI and the Kashmiri militants had been seeking to establish their foothold in the vicinity of Jammu city to strengthen the network in the city itself set up earlier and provoke a communal clash through terrorism which could lead to a possible divide between the people of the two communities.

60 bomb blasts, ISI conspiracy

The violent incidents in and around Jammu after February 1994, including over 60 bomb blasts in sensitive public places and in passenger and school buses which left 43 innocent persons dead and about 300 wounded, showed how ruthless and meticulous the Pakistani agents had been in executing their strategy. These and the January 26, 1995 bomb blasts in the heavily guarded Maulana Azad Stadium, Jammu, which killed nine persons and injured no less than 120 persons, including school children and Advisor to the Governor, Goswami, and in which the Governor, General (Retd) K V Krishna Rao, had a narrow escape, were nothing but part of the conspiracy the ISI and the Kashmiri separatists had hatched to destabilize Jammu and facilitate merger of the State with Pakistan.

From what happened in Jammu earlier and on January 26, 1995, under the very nose of the Governor, it was clear that the situation in the City of Temples had turned alarming. But what was more alarming was the fact that the ISI agents and their sympathizers had infiltrated the crucial police and intelligence agencies and other vital departments, thus rendering the administrative apparatus in the region a meaningless sham. In other words, the administration in the Jammu region had become undependable and vulnerable, with the terrorists having the advantage of choosing their time, venue, and target, both VIP and soft. The ongoing demographic invasion had also assumed alarming proportion after October 9, 1996, when Farooq Abdullah took over as Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister for the third time.

Separate Jammu state: a national requirement

All well-wishers and friends of the nation will surely welcome the setting up of the NSG hub in Jammu City. However, the mere establishment of the NSG hub in Jammu city is not the permanent solution to the cult of terror. For, its role will be limited. The Narendra Modi government had done exceedingly well by reading down Article 370, abrogating Article 35A, creating the Union Territory of Ladakh out of the erstwhile State and abolishing the practice of bi-annual Darbar move between Jammu and Srinagar and the vice-versa. It has to take forward the process of reforms to further defeat Kashmir jihad, further weaken the radical Islamists and anti-State actors in and outside the establishment in Kashmir, and stop the ongoing demographic invasion of Jammu. And, there is but one way in which this can be achieved and that is by separating Jammu from Kashmir and converting Kashmir into a Chandigarh-Type Union Territory. The sooner it is done, the better.

Note:
1. Text in Blue points to additional data on the topic.
2. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of PGurus.

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