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Where X'mas brought the fear of death...

Mukhtar Ahmad in Srinagar

Christmas, for the residents of south Kashmir, was no piece of cake.

It meant waking up to grey mornings and hours of search operations, living through the fear of death more draining than the bite of the cold, and, finally, going to bed in the embrace of crackdowns and bloody nightmares. It has been like this, since the recent spate of bomb blasts and selective killing of pro-government militants.

"The latest cycle of violence (in Anantnag and Pulwama) proves that normalcy here is only wishful thinking," says Mohammad Abdullah, a local resident.

The area was believed to have been sanitised by pro-government militants, who, as a police officer says, acted as "our eyes and ears." Members of the Jammu Kashmir Ikhwan and Muslim Mujaheedin had been dominating it for the past two years, forcing the pro-Pak militants to either "leave or lie low."

Now, however, with the influx of foreign militants into the valley, the situation has changed drastically.

"Pro-government militants appear to be their main target," the officer says, "The recent killings of political activists and their sympathisers are part of a larger design to gain ground in south Kashmir."

Consequently, the scenario is fast boiling down to an eye-for-eye situation. Last week the militants gunned down 10 pro-government militants and their sympathisers in Kulgam area, and followed it with the killing of five more. And before that, they rocked south Kashmir with powerful explosions, killing eight security force personnel and injuring, among others, former Union minister of state for home Mohammad Maqbool Dar's family members.

"All these have created a feeling of insecurity in south Kashmir," says a local. Senior police officials too admit the truth in this, even while saying there was no reason to panic.

"These are stray incidents carried out by militants in desperation," they claim, "We have made necessary arrangements to tackle those responsible for them."

State police chief Gurbachan Jagat's recent admission, however, does not induce much rosiness into the picture. "After nearly four years," he said, "there have been incidents of local boys visiting Pakistan for arms training this year..."

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