Killing off-duty cops

By all accounts the three policemen killed in Kashmir on Friday were soft targets. Off duty and defenceless in their homes, they were dragged to an orchard and shot dead. The context, however, is crucial. The murders took place days after a Hizbul Mujahideen operative had in a video called on police personnel, especially special police officers (SPOs), to resign or face death. The J&K Police top brass remains unmoved, terming the video as part of the outfit’s psychological operations to accomplish two aims: (1) de-motivate SPOs whose tip-offs about militants are precise and, (2) dissuade those willing to contest panchayat elections, a crucial ingredient in fostering a closer people-State symbiosis.  

There are 30,000 SPOs in J&K and it will be farfetched to assume that these sporadic killings in carefully chosen remote villages will have a domino effect. In Punjab, SPOs had functioned as a vital link during the years of insurgency. The system was a source of temporary employment, and because of their organic connections with villages, SPOs brought in valuable, real-time information. The targeting of the sons-of-the-soil cops and SPOs was a factor that helped turn the tide in Punjab.

J&K has seen worse in the decades of insurgency and the killings are unlikely to shake its resolve. But for the people to turn against militants targeting their country cousins, several conditions have to be fulfilled. One of these is clarity on safeguarding Article 35-A to assuage the man on the street that the political compact between the Indian State and Kashmir remains preserved. This is crucial in holding credible panchayat elections without the two mainstream parties and then not losing the plot, as it happened in the 2011 edition. The people also need to disassociate local polls from the wider identity question. The PDP and JKNC may have been politically astute in linking the panchayat polls with Article 35-A, but they have left the villager in a deadly counter-insurgency zone without grievance redress representatives. The Centre and the local political class cannot take antithetical paths and hope for a turnaround.