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Monday, Aug 14, 2006

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Where militants earn goodwill of people

Shujaat Bukhari

Youngmen aid and abet them

BANDIPORE: Enter Bandipore — the picturesque belt in north Kashmir. Fear is visible and tension palpable. Not because the Independence Day is approaching and security is to be tightened but because everybody admits that the place is infested with militants, keeping the security forces always on tenterhooks.

Last month when a passenger bus was going through routine checking at the entrance of Madar-based Border Security Force sector headquarters, the soldiers found two young men carrying scores of expensive imported shoes meant for a Lashkar-e-Taiba militant operating from Sumlar forests. They had reportedly procured the shoes from Srinagar.

Not an isolated incident

The young men were booked under the Public Safety Act for aiding and sustaining militancy. They are likely to be shifted to a Jammu jail. This, according police sources, is not an isolated incident but a practice prevailing in the "capital of militancy" in north Kashmir. Unlike the Kashmiri militants of the early 1990s, the LeT men do not burden the locals with donations for sustaining the movement.

Instead, they pay people for food and clothes. In case of damage to houses during encounters between them and the security personnel, militants offer compensation first.

"While it takes years to get government compensation sanctioned — that too after paying a huge bribe — the militants have paid to those who lost their homes," said Ali Mohammad, a resident.

According to both the police sources and locals, the militants earn the goodwill of the people. The locals dismiss the Army's claim that it is after LeT commander Salahuddin alias Bilal. They also reject claims such as the "militants are running a parallel government."

With Salahuddin in command all Lashkar's operations in Kashmir are believed to be directed from Bandipore.

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