Srinagar, August 31
Militants attacked almost simultaneously within 1 km of the Assembly, shooting dead two baton-carrying CRPF personnel in Lal Chowk from point blank range and throwing a grenade at CRPF personnel in Batamaloo, about 1 km away, injuring 25 persons, including 20 civilians, two police personnel and three CRPF men.
The attack appeared to be a replica of the attack carried out by militants on August 1 when they had shot at two baton-wielding CRPF personnel at Residency Road, one of whom died later, and later shot dead a policeman in Batamaloo.
The deceased CRPF personnel, who received bullet shots in the head and the neck, were identified as Raj Shekhar and Malikarjun of 28 Batallion, and both were on law and order duty outside a bank. Militants were believed to be on a motorcycle.
The incident today sparked off a show of resentment by CRPF jawans who told their visiting officials that they have become easy prey for militants, more so as they are deployed on standing duty on in busy and often hostile neighbourhoods for almost whole day and only have batons to defend themselves.
HK Lohia DIG, Srinagar, made a tacit admission that the defensive deployment of the CRPF has been a counter-productive exercise, providing militants easy targets, and said they would go for a change of strategy. “We will adopt an offensive strategy in coming days and I assure everybody that we would not allow such terror attacks to be repeated,” he said. Lohia said the same group of militants carried out the attack today who were behind the August 1 incident. Militants of the Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar and Jaish-e-Mohammad had coordinated these attacks, he
said.
Public rebuke of the CRPF by the state administration for its use of “excessive force” has prompted top officials of the paramilitary force to cut down on armed deployment, replacing their weapons with batons. Official sources told The Tribune that not more than a section, which has 10-odd personnel of a company, which has 90 to 100 personnel, is supposed to carry arms when on law and order duty, as per latest directions. With today’s incident underlining CRPF jawans’ vulnerability, this defensive strategy is likely to change.
“We have been discouraged from using weapons under any circumstances. The feeling among our rank and file is that they have been emasculated by their superiors just to be a part of the state administration’s public-relation exercise. I do not know how long this can go on,” the commandant of a battalion said. The Jamait-ul-Mujahideen has owned up the attacks, a claim rubbished by the police.
