The spate of killing of innocent non-Muslims aka Kaafirs in Jammu & Kashmir has pushed the security agencies to high alert. The killings are a means to create an environment of fear amongst the Hindu and Sikh community, reminiscent of the days leading to the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990. Ever since the abrogation of article 370, two years ago, the stone-pelting incidents that used to be a routine way of life in the valley have come to nought. However, the Islamists have evolved and taken to a new approach of turning the child stone pelters into contract killers.
Hybrid terrorists
According to a TOI report, there has been an emergence of ‘Hybrid’ terrorists who are young striplings, given a pistol or gun by their Pakistani handlers to conduct one-off killing and simply go into hibernation after conducting their business. The weapon of killing is then taken away, and the forces have to work twice as harder to apprehend anyone.
These “neo-recruits or hybrid terrorists” beat surveillance with one-off attacks and help Pakistan-based masterminds maintain deniability and project attacks in J&K as indigenous. Most of these terrorists are fresh inductees with no prior case history.
They are simply brainwashed and pushed to the edge, so much so that the hatred for non-Muslims drives them to pump bullets into them. A Jagran report states that these hybrids are lured through financial incentives with each of them receiving Rs 10,000 for their killing tasks.
A hybrid terrorist neutralized
On October 5, Virendra Paswan, who hailed from Bhagalpur, Bihar, was shot dead in Kashmir by Islamic terrorists. However, yesterday, Paswan’s killer, Mukhtar Shah, a hybrid terrorist of a new terror outfit named ‘The Resistance Front’ (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was killed by the forces during an encounter.
“Out of three killed terrorists, one terrorist has been identified as Mukhtar Shah of Ganderbal, who shifted to Shopian after killing one street hawker Virendra Paswan of Bihar.” informed General-inspector of Police Vijay Kumar.
Shopian encounter, Jammu and Kashmir | Out of three killed terrorists, one terrorist has been identified as Mukhtar Shah of Ganderbal, who shifted to Shopian after killing one street hawker Virendra Paswan of Bihar: IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar pic.twitter.com/wngrnv7OVr
— ANI (@ANI) October 11, 2021
Other non-Muslims killed in the valley
Apart from Paswan, Makhan Lal Bindroo, a Kashmiri Pandit and owner of the two medical stores in Srinagar was also gunned down by the terrorists. 68-year-old Bindroo was shot by the terrorists at around 7 pm while he was attending customers at his shop in Srinagar’s Iqbal Park area.
Moreover, last week, Satinder Kaur (50), principal of Government Boys Higher Secondary school in Eidgah, and a teacher at the school, Deepak Chand, were also shot dead inside the school premises by terrorists.
Eyewitnesses claimed that at least two to three terrorists entered the school premises and fired at the principal and teacher from point-blank range before fleeing from the spot.
Despite a plethora of commendable steps taken by the Government to bring back Kashmiri Hindus home, it has somehow failed to take preventive measures at the ground to create a safe and violence-free environment. Unless the government goes all out against the ideology that drives the Islamic terrorists; it will be difficult to bring peace in its truest sense in the region. Until then, the security agencies need to pull up their socks and start going after the new menace of ‘Hybrid terrorism’.