India
Govt sources claim that over two-dozen highly trained terrorists who entered Jammu and Kashmir in September may be behind the recent high profile attacks
Updated : Sep 24, 2015, 11:34 AM IST
NEW DELHI: Over two-dozen highly trained terrorists who entered Jammu and Kashmir in September may be behind the recent high profile attacks, say government sources. Such "impact incidents" for media attention would carry on for at least a month more, they warn.
Officials monitoring infiltration patterns say that in September this year, around 55 terrorists tried to sneak into the Indian side. Of those 20 were killed by troops while others managed to sneak in.
"We have confirmed information of at least 24 entering India, which is a good enough number to carry out over a dozen high profile attacks," says an officer.
Usually attacks are carried out by terrorists in teams of two and on many occasions at least one of them manages to get away from security for another attack. The infiltration this September was unusual. Every year, terrorist infiltration goes up in June, July and August as part of the preparations for winter, but drastically drops in September. This year, September too witnessed a high level of infiltration. "Maybe they knew it was going to snow early," one Army source said.
But an intelligence source pointed out that the visit of a team of UN and US officials to Pakistan Occupied Kashmir recently may have resulted in increased infiltration in September. In preparation for the team's visit, authorities had pushed many terrorists who were in the terrorist camps in Muzaffarabad and surrounding areas.
Officials expect an unusually high infiltration this month too. At the Tangdhar-Kuwara-Uri areas, many of the Army bunkers have been damaged, and the Army vigil has been eroded in the wake of the earthquake. "Some will try and take advantage of it," says a senior official.
Officials also point out that the two-dozen terrorists who entered India in September and the ones who are now coming in are mostly Pakistani or foreign terrorists. "They are not the local boys, but well trained hardcore jehadis," says officer.
And that also explains why they are able to carry out such daredevil attacks.