Amid the recent spike in Pakistan-sponsored terrorist attacks in the Jammu region, a hub of the National Security Guard, the country’s counter-terrorism force, has been established here. The elite force will be readily available to respond to any situation.
The NSG forces have been stationed here on the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs that directly looks after policing and security in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir.
A small unit of the NSG has been present in Kashmir since 2018, when the proposal to deploy around 100 commandos in Kashmir to support the Indian forces in high risk operations was approved by the Home Ministry.
The National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC), which is a specialised agency operating within the NSG, has also occasionally supported local law enforcement by conducting Post Blast Investigations.
The NSG is a ‘contingency deployment force’ which generally intervenes during serious terrorist attacks. It has been described as “New Delhi’s go-to response force in worst case scenarios”.
Having remained peaceful for about two decades, the ten districts of the Jammu region witnessed terror strikes or movement of terrorists in the past few months. These districts are Jammu, Kathua, Poonch, Rajouri, Kishtwar, Doda, Ramban, Reasi, Udhampur and Samba. These terror strikes had apparently put the BJP government at the Centre in a spot.
The Pakistani terrorists operating in the Jammu region appear highly trained in jungle warfare and go untraceable after ambushing security forces. The Indian Army and paramilitary forces have so far not been able to hunt down the terrorists involved in the recent three ambush incidents in the districts of Kathua, Doda and Kishtwar which saw 10 soldiers losing their lives.
Besides, several civilians, Army, CRPF and Police personnel were killed while fighting terrorists in the other parts of the Jammu division.
The twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch that witnessed peace since 2003 after the ‘Operation Sarpvinash’ was launched by the Indian Army to plug the mountain routes of infiltration of terrorists, has in the recent past witnessed a couple of professionally carried out incidents of ambush of Army and IAF vehicles. Involvement of Pakistan Army’s regulars in these incidents has not been ruled out.
Amidst incidents of Pakistan agencies dropping weapons and drugs in the border areas of the neighbouring Punjab, particularly in the Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Pathankot districts, the NSG decided to set up regional hubs at Amritsar and Pathankot also to improve its counteraction capabilities in Northern India.
Top brass of Police, BSF, CRPF and intelligence agencies of J&K and Punjab were meeting regularly to strengthen their counter-terror operations and also check infiltration through the International Border with Pakistan.
The former NSG chief Nalin Prabhat has been appointed Director General of J&K Police to tackle the situation.
The J&K Police has established 19 special counter terror units that have been deployed mostly in the South of Pir Panjal and Chenab Valley ranges where movement of terrorists has been recorded.