Home Ministry meet dismisses terror hit list targeting Kashmiri Pandits as Pak deep State’s psy ops

The high-level meeting presided over by the Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla in New Delhi on Tuesday has dismissed the latest threat to Kashmiri Pandits who have been employed under the  Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Programme in Kashmir as a part of the Pakistani deep State’s psychological operation to spread fear.

According to the officers present in the meeting, there was broad consensus among the national security planners that an act by a Jihadisit group of uploading the transfer list of 56 rehabilitated employees,  and threatening their elimination was a “hollow operation’ to terrorise the minority community. The Pakistani deep State, according to the officers, has been using jihadist groups like Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad in its much-exposed psychological warfare against India. “Spreading fear with such so-called hit lists is a familiar tactic to achieve their political objectives in the valley”, said a senior official who attended the meeting.

“They carried out some attacks and assassinations early this year. But now, they are aware of the consequences of such attempts. They know that there will be a befitting retaliation”, said the official, virtually ruling out any fresh attacks.

“As many as 80 terrorists of TRF (The Resistant Front) or LeT have been neutralized out of around 110. Their shelf life is just 10-15 days after their over-ground action,” said a top official in the Jammu and Kashmir Police. He said that the terrorists eliminated in the current year included 52 foreigners. “The activities of LeT and JeM have been severely degraded with the majority of over-ground workers being neutralised. The Hizbul Mujahideen has been more or less neutralized. Now the focus is on dealing with threats and attacks on soft targets”, he asserted.

In wake of publishing of the list of Kashmiri Pandits and threatening of journalists by the Pakistani terror groups through their supplicants in the Valley, the security forces have decided to meet the challenge head-on by increasing area domination of the vulnerable localities with focus on safety of minorities.

In the latest threat broadcast through the terror blog KashmirFight, which stands blocked across India, TRF has published transfer orders of the PM package employees who have been posted by the authorities at ‘safer places’ after some recent attacks on some members of the minority Hindu community. TRF has alleged that such employees were being used to spread “Delhi’s narrative and Hindutva agenda” in Kashmir.

The blog has carried the names of 56 employees of the PM package shifted to ‘safer places’, claiming that it has complete details about “19 locations, 6000 flats and as much jobs/collaborators”. It has obviously caused a fresh wave of fear and terror among Kashmiri Pandits who have been demanding their transfer to Jammu or any other place. Many of them have shifted to Jammu and have been staging demonstrations there. However, the UT administration has assured them that there would be no more attacks and they need not live in fear psychosis.

The TRF threats carried by the terror blog have been circulated through WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms in Jammu and Kashmir. It has threatened to upload a larger list of the non-locals who could be attacked.

Senior officers of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the Central agencies discussed all these threats in the two-hour-long meeting with senior Jammu and Kashmir officials, including Director General of Police Dilbag Singh and Special DG CID Rashmi Ranjan Swain. Knowledgeable sources said that necessary strategies were devised to deal with such threats and fail any terror on such soft targets.

The meeting also discussed the latest trends in infiltration of terrorists and their movement in the Kashmir valley with the onset of winter besides the continued smuggling of arms and ammunition, currency and drugs through drones from across the International Border in Jammu.

Sources said that winter management strategy on the anti-militancy front in the Kashmir valley was prominently discussed in the meeting as there were inputs that in next about a fortnight some militants including commanders hiding in upper reaches could be forced to move to plains because of snowfall and there would be an opportunity to eliminate them.

Drone challenge especially along the International Border in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts figured prominently at the meeting as it has been observed that Pakistan Army, Rangers and militants sitting across the border are sending consignments of arms, ammunition, explosives, narcotics and currency through drones in Jammu and Punjab. Many of such attempts have been foiled but there are apprehensions that some of such consignments have reached their given destinations in the Union Territory.

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