Indian Army has just started its annual terrorist hunting season and Syed Salahuddin has already conceded defeat

The Indian Army is going hammer and tongs after Pakistan-backed terrorism in the Valley, which has already broken the back of Hizbul Mujahideen and other Pakistan-sponsored terror groups who have reportedly conceded defeat owing to the operations being carried out by the Indian security forces at breakneck speed. Failing to export terror into India, these terror outfits are now formulating strategies aimed at encouraging indigenous terrorism in the Valley

In a video that surfaced recently, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin could be seen holding a condolence meet for Hizbul commander, Riyaz Naikoo, who was recently slaughtered by the security forces in the Kashmir Valley. Not only did Salahuddin appear rattled at the condolence meet, after the Indian Army dispatched his top terror commander in India but he could also be heard conceding defeat at the condolence meeting held in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The Hizbul chief said that the Indian Army has eliminated 80 terrorists from the Pakistan sponsored terror outfit in 2020 itself. Salahuddin also admitted that the Indian Army is giving hell to Hizbul and other Pakistan-based terror outfits when he said, “But the enemy (Indian Army) is in a stronger position at present, due to out weak policies.”

With abrogation of Article 370 and lack of political patronage to Pakistan-backed terror season, the Summers- which is the season of cross-border terror infiltration and terror hunting in Kashmir, have been pretty hard for Pakistan-sponsored terror groups this year.

The lockdown has also cleared the way for the security forces to go into an overdrive, hunting terrorists spread across the Union Territory. The Summers have just started and the Indian Army has already gunned down 28 terrorists in the month of April- highest since the scrapping of Article 370 last year.

The summer season has just started, but the Pakistan-backed terror groups already seem to have given up already. The strategy of the Indian armed forces is simple- you keep coming, and we will keep killing.

Infiltration is proving to be quite a task, and survival within the Valley is not a cakewalk either for Pakistan-based terrorists, because there is literally no stopping the Indian armed forces- no terror sympathisers playing spoilsport and no local politicians demanding unilateral ceasefires during the month of Ramzan.

This year the terrorists did not get Ramzan ceasefires, what they got was a barrage of bullets weighing them down like never before. And now the Pakistan-based terror outfits feel compelled to reformulate their strategy for keeping the Valley disturbed.

And to make matters worse, even the Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen narco-terror network groups are getting busted in Punjab, and recently the Punjab Police arrested Ranjeet Singh alias Rana alias Cheeta, an associate of the slain terrorist Riyaz Naikoo.

Unsurprisingly, TRF (The Resistance Front)- a Lashkar front masquerading as an indigenous militant outfit has come into being. This is a significant rebranding by Lashkar e Taiba (LeT) from the Jihadi image of terror groups in Kashmir to an image that seems more in line with the anti-India propaganda in global media and also Indian journalists having definitional issues who prefer making militants out of terrorists.

The Lashkar-controlled TRF has been claiming responsibility for every terror attack in Kashmir in the last few months, and even quibbled with Hizbul Mujahideen over credit for the Handwara terror attack.

TRF is another attempt by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, the two Kashmir focussed terror groups in Pakistan to portray terrorism in Kashmir as an indigenous and organic freedom movement, so that Islamabad can evade the pressure that it is facing from the global terror watchdog, Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Hizbul Mujahideen stands overstretched, leaderless and sidelined by Pakistan’s terror ecosystem after the elimination of Riyaz Naikoo, while Lashkar e Taiba is looking for plausible deniability by forming a seemingly indigenous ‘resistance’ outfit. Clearly, the Indian Army is raining hell on Pakistan-backed terrorism which has left it rudderless, and having already conceded defeat it is now trying to incite indigenous terrorism as opposed to blatantly Jihadist terrorism.