Obama visit: Unified HQ to review security in J-K

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, January 16

The Unified Headquarters – a joint command structure of security agencies in Jammu and Kashmir – will meet next week to discuss the situation in the state ahead of the US president Barack Obama’s visit to the country.
Governor NN Vohra is scheduled to chair the high-level meeting on Tuesday next week, in which top officers of the security forces and intelligence agencies will brief him about the prevailing security scenario in the state, sources said. Intelligence agencies have already warned about the possibility of an attack coinciding with Obama’s visit.
A series of warnings and the past pattern of terror attacks coinciding with such high-profile visits is keeping the security grid in the state on an alert.
The alarm was signalled by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and 16 Corp commander Lt Gen KH Singh, both of whom had yesterday expressed concern about the possibility of an attack coinciding with Obama’s visit to the country later this month. “They (terrorists) may try to do something to create news. But we are well prepared,” the Defence Minister had said yesterday.
Lt Gen Singh, who is the General Officer Commanding of the Nagrota-based 16 Corps, yesterday hinted at the track record of past attacks but also said that the Army had inputs that militants might strike in the region. “There have been instances when such attacks took place during eminent leaders’ visit to the country in the past,” he said.
Even as the number of militants significantly declined in the recent years, they have succeeded in carrying out several high-profile attacks killing several security forces personnel. Sources in the security agencies believe that the militants have an underground presence in parts of north and south Kashmir and near Srinagar.
The latest threat perception is rooted in the history of several deadly attacks, some of which were aimed at soft targets, which have taken place in the region when a dignitary visited the state or the country. One of the deadliest attacks took place in March 2000 when the then US president Bill Clinton was on a visit to the country and 36 Sikhs were killed in south Kashmir’s Chattisinghpora village. The attack targeting civilians overshadowed Clinton’s visit and was suspected to have been carried out by militants belonging to the Pakistan-based LeT.
The attacks coinciding with high-profile visits have also taken place when Prime Ministers have toured the state in recent years and their recurrence has increased in past two years. In June 2013, two militants carried out an ambush on Srinagar’s outskirts killing at least 13 soldiers when the then PM Manmohan Singh was in the city.
In November 2014, militants launched a fidayeen raid and killed civilians and soldiers in the Arnia sector when PM Narendra Modi was scheduled to address a rally the next day in a nearby district and a month later militants stormed an artillery unit in north Kashmir three days ahead of Modi’s visit to Srinagar.