The special task force of the J&K police is gradually emerging as the arrowhead of counter-insurgency in the valley. The army is still the backbone of counter-insurgency but, as the central para-military forces have been marginalised over the past few months, the state police is moving to centre-stage.
A year ago, the STF was a single cell of the state force, under a superintendant of police. Today, it is virtually a parallel force in every district of the state and director-general of police Gurbachan Jagat says there will soon be STF units in each sub-division.
Teams are also being formed, he says, to tie up with the army and climb to the higher reaches of the mountains, particularly in Doda, Udhampur, Poonch, Baramulla and Kupwara districts. He says that since he took over in April, he has gradually withdrawn the police from their earlier defensive positions in bunkers and patrols and redeployed them to gather information and flush out militants. My strategy is very simple. We will continue intensifying our operations, he says.
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The local police, particularly the task forces, are being given promotional and monetary incentives and equipment. The state police had been so neglected during the seven years of insurgency that Jagat says none of the seven police stations in Kupwara district (from where the maximum infiltration occurs) and seven of the 14 in Baramulla district (from where almost as much infiltration occurs) had not a single vehicle. Now, he says, each one does, plus the latest communication equipment.
Although even senior army officers agree that the local police are the best placed to tackle militancy, Srinagar is agog with talk of extortion and corruption by the task forces. They arrest innocent people only to get money for their release, alleges a policeman. Senior state government officials acknowledge that they frequently hear such complaints but, from the beginning of May, there have not been complaints of extortion, says BR Singh, principal secretary to the chief minister.
Jagat explains that, as any force becomes more operational, complaints against them increase. A few of them (complaints) may be correct but by and large it is orchestrated, by the local police, the Hurriyat, human rights organisations, he holds.
An intelligence officer, however, points out that the system of rewarding task force personnel for capturing or killing identified militants, listed in A, B and C categories, worked well initially but has become counter-productive now. Perhaps to increase the number of cash rewards, even militants who gave up the gun in 1991 have now been listed and are being targetted. Naturally, there is a backlash among their neighbours, who know they havent been involved in militancy for years now.