Hi-tech, strategic: new wave of Kashmir militant attacks before elections stuns Indian forces

On the evening of 9 June, as hundreds of high-profile guests gathered in Delhi to watch Narendra Modi sworn in as Indian prime minister for the third time, a bloody massacre unfolded 400 miles (640km) north in the mountains of Kashmir. A bus carrying Hindu pilgrims was ambushed by militants in the southern Reasi area of Indian-administered Kashmir, killing nine and injuring 33. “A masked militant appeared on the road and started firing towards us, hitting the driver in his forehead,” said Santosh Kumar Verma, 44, a pilgrim from the state of Uttar Pradesh, who was sitting on the front seat of the bus. Even after the bus had rolled down into a deep gorge, militants continued to fire on it for half an hour. “The aim was clearly to kill all of us and send a message to Modi,” said Verma, who was hospitalised by his injuries. The Reasi attack was not an isolated incident but part of a mounting number of militant ambushes in Kashmir that have killed almost 200 security personal and over 350 civilians since 2020. While Indian-administered Kashmir has been in the grip of an insurgency by militants loyal to Pakistan since the 1990s, experts say this new wave of attacks is more concerning and technologically advanced than anything he region has faced in decades, and has left the military and intelligence agencies scrambling to bring it under control. Regional elections will be held in Kashmir this week for the first time in a decade, with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party’s manifesto boasting of transforming the region from a “terrorist hotspot to a tourist spot”. Yet the recent rise in attacks appears to contradict the Modi government’s claims to have brought peace to Kashmir. Since independence in 1947, both India and Pakistan have claimed the entire region as their own while controlling only parts of it. Three wars have resulted. In the 1990s, the independence movement in Indian-administered Kashmir took a violent turn, with the backing of Pakistan. Thousands of Kashmiris took up arms to fight against Indian rule and were joined by militants from Pakistan, as well as some veteran mujahideen of the Soviet-Afghan war. India launched a heavy-handed military operation in response, reducing the influence of militants but also bringing accusations of grave human rights violations. The separatist insurgency, however, could never be crushed completely. Waves of terrorist attacks and the rise of new militant figures ensured that Kashmir still remains one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world. In August 2019, the Modi government unilaterally stripped Kashmir of the partial autonomy it had enjoyed since independence and brought it under the full control of New Delhi. In the aftermath, Modi sent thousands of additional troops to Kashmir, imposed a harsh communication blackout and put severe restrictions on physical movement of millions of Kashmiris. Hundreds were jailed and local journalists were routinely detained and harassed. Many in the Indian establishment celebrated the move but it was met with widespread fury within Kashmir and over the border in Pakistan. The Modi government justified its decision to take control of Kashmir on the basis of ensuring safety and security for the region. Yet according to India’s security establishment, Kashmir’s insurgency has far from disappeared, and some experts believe this latest wave of attacks is directly linked to the actions of the Modi government. “The threat India faces on its border is totally unprecedented,” said Pravin Sawhney, a former Indian army officer and a defence expert. After an ambush killed five soldiers last November, India’s army chief, Gen Upendra Dwivedi, who was then head of its Northern Command, said these new militants were “highly trained”, possibly in “Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries”. He also alleged that some of them were retired Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan has not responded to the allegation. Shesh Paul Vaid, former director general of Jammu and Kashmir police, said that, as well as being highly skilled, these militants were also using sophisticated weapons such as M4 assault rifles that the US military left behind in Afghanistan and steel-cased bullets. “The way they have been ambushing our forces in the last two years reveals a totally new phenomenon,” said Vaid. “I have decades of experience in dealing with the insurgency, but I can tell you that we have never faced anything like this – certainly not in the past two decades.” Five officers from the Indian military, and local police and intelligence, who requested to remain anonymous, described how these recent attacks were no longer carried out by radicalised young men who had little training in combat and would often post their activities on the internet. Instead, they described a new batch of militants who appeared to be highly trained to military standards and were coming over the border from Pakistan, equipped with hi-tech equipment, including drones, and were using virtually untraceable Chinese applications to communicate. “The attacks over the last two years have stunned us,” said one army official. “These people have received extensive guerrilla warfare training and their goal is to cause the maximum casualties possible.” Instead of getting killed in the ambushes, as was previously the norm – either from suicide attacks or in gunfights with police – these militants have tended to lay in wait, sometimes for days, and then hit their Indian army targets with precision. They have then disappeared back into the forests and taken advantage of the rough mountainous terrain to stay hidden, making them difficult to track. They have also been using drones to ensure a supply of weapons and cash as far as nine miles within the Indian border. “We are having difficulty gathering intelligence on these militants,” said the army officer. “We lack understanding of who they are and how damaging they could be to us.” According to police and Indian military officers, there are about 150 militants active in the region. Security officials described how Indian soldiers were ambushed by militants who wore body cameras and then released the videos online in the aftermath. In July, after an attack in the region’s Doda area, militants released a gruesome video online of an Indian army officer being beheaded. “Now there is a change in tactics. They [militants] ambush soldiers, then disappear and later show up in some other place and attack there,” said former Northern Command chief Deependra Singh Hooda. Those who have taken responsibility for the attacks claim to be from newer militant groups such as People’s Anti-Fascist Front, the Resistance Front and the Kashmir Tigers, which all emerged after Modi’s cancellation of Kashmir’s special status in 2019. However, the Indian army claims these groups are simply a rebranding of Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist outfits historically responsible for driving the insurgency. Another source of concern is where these ambushes have been taking place. The region’s Jammu province, the only Hindu majority area, had largely escaped militant attacks. However, after new networks were established, Jammu has now emerged as one of the focal points of ambushes against the Indian military. Experts believe it is part of a well-thought-out strategy to target places where Indian forces have been pulled out and deployed in other troubled border areas, particularly along the India-China border. Fear of the insurgency has become so potent in the Jammu region that it has led to the revival of a controversial local civilian militia, which is now being armed with automatic and semi-automatic rifles by the state. This militia, known as the Village Defence Guards, also existed back in the 1990s when it became notorious for committing human rights violations such as rape, murder and extortion. Among those who recently volunteered was Raj Kumar, 45, who lives in Garkhal village in Jammu. “There is an increase in militancy activities so we patrol the village day and night and keep an eye out for the militants,” said Kumar, adding that the government had promised them even more weapons and training. “The militants have sophisticated weapons and training – that is why we are asking for additional support from the government,” he added. “This time we are more afraid.”