The Central Government is taking bold move one after another with respect to Jammu and Kashmir. Since the BJP government has withdrawn its support from the PDP it has gone on offensive in the Valley. Now the state is under Governor’s rule. In a step towards comprehensive clean-up drive, yesterday, Supercop K Vijay Kumar was named as the chief advisor of the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. K Vijay Kumar was the Chief of the Special Task Force (STF) which killed Veerappan in operation Cocoon. Then, in another major decision Chhattisgarh cadre IAS officer, B.V.R. Subramanyam was made the Chief Secretary to the Governor of J&K. Separatist Yasin Malik has also been arrested and another separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq has been kept under the house arrest. Now in another extremely bold and much-needed move, National Security Guards, also known as ‘Black Cats’ have been deployed in Jammu and Kashmir. The motto of NSG is Sarvatra Sarvōttama Surakṣā (Omnipresent omnipotent defense). Nikhil Kumar who once served as the director of the NSG said this about the elite force: “The NSG goes in, strikes, achieves its objectives, and quietly comes back, just like the mythological chakra (disc) which would behead the demons and return to the finger of Lord Krishna.”
NSG commandos with their sniper rifles, through-the-wall radars, C-4 explosives, Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine guns and corner shot assault rifles will intensify the terror operations actions and it will also reduce the number of casualties. In 2017, 80 security force officers and in this year till may 30 security officers lost their lives. The move to deploy special force commandos has come after the increasing number of casualties of security officers in counter-terror operations. It becomes difficult for the security officers to eliminate the terrorist when they hide in any building or house. It also increases the casualties and also causes a lot of damage to property. NSG commandos with their sophisticated weapons are capable of eliminating the terrorists while minimizing casualties of security forces. A team of NSG has already been stationed in Kashmir and it is going through rigorous training at the Border Security Force camp at Humhaha near Srinagar. NSG commandos are experts at counter-terror operations, urban warfare and close-quarter combat and they are also not answerable to the Parliament, they are only answerable to India’s intelligence agency- Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
Kashmir is suitable for the NSG commandos to test their skills, especially in close quarter combat. NSG along with Rashtriya Rifles would wreak havoc upon the terrorists in Kashmir. It looks like the government is moving swiftly on Kashmir. NSG’s presence would help in to sanitize the valley quickly.
NSG was set up in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, which was carried out by the Indian Army to eliminate the terrorists who forcefully entered into the Golden Temple and were using the holy shrine as a base for their terror operations. In the operation carried out by the Indian Army, the Golden temple suffered damage and thus a need to create a special force like NSG was felt and in 1985 under the National Security Guard Act, it came into existence.
One of the biggest operations carried out by the NSG is Operation Black Thunder in 1988 when 1,000 NSG commandos entered the Golden Temple to flush out the terrorists inside the temple. The Black Cat commandos were also employed to eliminate the terrorists who carried out 26/11 terrorist attacks. They also carried out successful anti-terror operation during Akshardham Temple terrorist attack in Gujarat. Currently, there are around 7,500 personnel working with the NSG.