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| Taliban in J&K: Real or Surreal | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 8: Amidst lofty claims of the government, state police and several security agencies that militancy is ebbing and infiltration is declining, ‘the intercepted inputs’ on arrival of Taliban in Jammu and Kashmir is hardly finding any takers even as the security forces are on back-foot in confirming the reports.
Union Home Ministry Wednesday sought a report from security agencies about the reports that Taliban groups may have entered into the Kashmir Valley though Army denied reports to this effect.
The move comes after a wireless intercept reportedly suggested that a group of nearly 20 militants, said to be Taliban, were fighting the Army in Gurez sector of North Kashmir.
The Army headquarters informed the government that intermittent gunfight was on in the sector and two of the group had been gunned down, sources in the Home Ministry said. The sources said the bodies retrieved from the scene of encounter showed some features similar to those belonging to North West Frontier Province (NWFP).
The security agencies were closely monitoring the situation after an intercept between two groups suggested presence of Taliban in North Kashmir and panic messages from Lashker-e-Taiba cadres asking them to go back.
In Srinagar, the Army maintained that there were no reports about the presence of Taliban militants in the Kashmir valley. "So far, there was no information that any Taliban militant had infiltrated into this side from Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir," the Srinagar-based Defence Spokesman said.
The spokesman asserted that troops deployed on the Line of Control are strong enough to deal with any situation and said there were few encounters in the forest area near the LoC recently in which about two dozen militants were killed.
The Defence spokesman said two terrorists were killed by the security forces in Maidanpora forest yesterday raising the death toll in the three-day long operation to four. Two army personnel were killed and three others injured in the encounter which started on Sunday.
He said during the next few months, terrorists waiting across the border, will try to infiltrate into Kashmir as has been the trend for the past several years.
Security forces have stepped up operations in the higher reaches of Kupwara since March 20 following information about infiltration by militants from across the border.
About two dozen militants, majority of whom had sneaked into this side while others had gone to receive them, were killed by the security forces in Shamasbari forests and Hafruda forests in Kupwara. These clashes have also claimed the lives of 11 soldiers, including a major.
He said troops along the Line of Control are on high alert to foil any infiltration attempt.
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