Post-truce, search ops in city

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, June 20

The cordon and search operations – the backbone of counter-insurgency and area domination operations in the Kashmir valley – have marked a return after the month-long unilateral ceasefire during when such operations were curtailed.

The security forces have initiated the cordon and search operations across the region, including the city, which had been comparatively off the grid during recent years.

On Tuesday evening, police’s counter-insurgency unit sealed off a locality in the Bemina neighbourhood on the city outskirts and launched a search operation. Locals said the operation continued for more than two hours in Bemina’s Alamdar Colony and policemen searched several houses.

“The cordon was laid around 9:15 in the evening and continued till late. The police went inside several houses and no one was allowed to go inside or leave,” a local resident said.

A policeman accompanying the search team said there was an intelligence input about the presence of militants in the area. It was the first cordon and search operation in Srinagar, the state’s summer capital, since the end of the Ramzan ceasefire on Sunday.

The Ramzan ceasefire was initiated on May 17 and had brought the counter-insurgency operations, including the cordon and search operations, to an abrupt halt.

The operations were resumed on Monday, a day after the Union government announced that it was not extending the unilateral ceasefire and ordered the security forces to resume its operations against militants.

Immediately after the end of the ceasefire, the cordon and search operations were launched in several parts of south Kashmir, including in Wanghama village of Anantnag district, Samboora village in Awantipora police district and Hajin Bala in Pulwama district.

The security forces have so far conducted one counter-insurgency operation which led to a gunfight and the killing of militants. Three militants, including a foreigner and two locals affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammad, were killed in the operation on Tuesday in Hayuna village of south Kashmir’s Tral sub-district.

A senior police officer, who is in charge of a district in the volatile south Kashmir, said the instructions to resume the operations against the militants came immediately after the ceasefire ended.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the preference was to launch operations on specific intelligence inputs rather than inputs about the presence of militants in any general area.

The cordon and search operations in recent years have sparked violent protests with local residents throwing stones at security forces leading to clashes and also casualties, which continue to be a major worry for the security forces.

Locality sealed at night 

• On Tuesday evening, police’s counter-insurgency unit sealed off a locality in the Bemina neighbourhood on the outskirts of Srinagar and launched a search operation
• Locals said the operation continued for more than two hours in Bemina’s Alamdar Colony and policemen searched several houses. The cordon was laid around 9:15 in the evening and continued till late