Why in news?

• In just two weeks, there were two attacks on security personnel in Jammu.
  • The first attack happened on April 20, where militants ambushed a truck in Poonch and killed five soldiers.
  • The second attack took place on May 5, where five Army personnel lost their lives in an explosion in a forested area in Rajouri.
• These attacks have brought attention to Jammu, which was previously considered a relatively peaceful region in comparison to the other regions of Jammu and Kashmir.
• Now, it is facing a new wave of terrorist activity.

What’s in today’s article?

• Terrorism in Jammu

Terrorism in Jammu: Statistics

• Jammu was largely seen as more peaceful of the two regions of Jammu & Kashmir. However, off late, the Jammu region has become focus of a new terror thrust.
• Experts believe that the first sign of this shift in focus came in February 2021, when the UT Police seized 15 sticky bombs (magnetic IEDs) in Samba district’s Ramgarh sector along the International Border with Pakistan.
• This was followed by the dropping of two IEDs by low-flying drones at the Air Force Station, Jammu, in June 2021.
  • The attack was the first of its kind in India.
• Analysis of data from 2021 reveals that the three districts of Jammu region have seen fewer but bloodier and more high-visibility terror attacks when compared to Kashmir Valley.
  • These three districts are — Poonch, Rajouri and Jammu.

Shift in strategy: cause of concern

• Militants, after infiltrating into the area from across the LoC, are traditionally known to have a layover of not more than two or three days in the region before they cross the Pir Panjal range to Shopian in South Kashmir.
• Hence, many in the security establishment believed that the militants who crossed the LoC would not stay back in Jammu for longer to carry out the attacks.

Factors behind stepped-up attacks in Jammu

• More high-tech, well-trained militants
  • Those involved in the attack were careful to not use their own communication systems, the signals of which could have been intercepted by police and security forces and their location tracked.
  • Instead, the militants borrowed the phones of locals to communicate with their handlers in Pakistan.
  • They would download apps such as Telegram on the phones of the locals and talk to their handlers in Pakistan.
• Drying up of the human intelligence
  • One of the reasons why forces may have not been able to anticipate the attacks is the drying up of the human intelligence or their network of informers.
    • Human intelligence is very important in counter-insurgency operations.
    • Even with all their reliance on gadgets and smart ways to avoid surveillance, the terrorists visit the nearest human settlement in order to get logistical support for their survival.
    • This is where the role of human intelligence becomes important.
  • While militants and their network of overground workers continue to exist, the informers are missing.
    • Many security experts attribute the dried-up human intelligence to authorities taking the prevailing peace for guaranteed.
    • As per them, the new officers who got transferred to the region didn’t work as hard as they should have on their informer network.
• Security Forces shifted out
  • In 2020, amid the standoff with China along the LAC in Ladakh sector, several companies of the Rashtriya Rifles were moved from the hinterlands of Poonch, Rajouri and adjoining Reasi district in Jammu division.
  • This thinning out of personnel may have emboldened the militants.
  • This move coincided with a period when militants operating in Kashmir Valley had come under pressure from police and security personnel, and were looking for newer hideouts.
• Opportunities for terrorists in Jammu region
  • The Rajouri-Poonch area had a thinner concentration of security forces.
  • This region is equidistant from Shopian and Kulgam in Kashmir, and the Line of Control with Pakistan, making it easier to move between the three regions.
    • It was highly unlikely that security forces and police from all three regions would simultaneously launch an operation against the militants