Terror Recruitment In Kashmir ‘Very High’, Al Badr Active Again
Srinagar: In a big concern for security establishments, the local terror recruitment in Kashmir has officially reached 131 since the beginning of this year, and it could reach as high as 180 by December-end according to an internal assessment of security forces, Security agencies also believe the numbers could go up further but lack of weapons is what is preventing recruitment by the terror groups. It has also come to light that the long-defunct terror group Al Badr, created in 1999 by Pakistan, has been revived again with the group getting 17 fresh recruits into its ranks in July and August. It had zero recruits for a long time now.
Security agencies are still trying to figure out why Al Badr has been activated even when Pakistan has floated terror fronts such as The Resistance Front and People’s Anti Fascist Front to claim attacks by terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM). “The idea behind the two new organizations is to give an indigenous spin to the terror activities in Kashmir and to absolve Pakistan, which has been under heat due to the FATF sword hanging over its head,” a source in the defense and security establishment said.
The source added that the effort was to show that terrorism in J&K is actually a fight against the government in New Delhi rather than a religion-backed fight. These developments come even as the security forces eliminated nearly 180 terrorists in operations since the beginning of this year, including 169 in the hinterland, as of last weekend.
88 active terrorists in North Kashmir, 123 in south
According to official statistics, 131 Kashmiri youngsters have joined the terror group this year as against 117 last year. The local recruitment figures in 2018 and 2017 were 214 and 128, respectively. Of the 89 locals who had joined terror groups by August-end, 57 were eliminated by the security forces in encounters where efforts were made to first make them surrender by bringing in family members to appeal to the youngsters, sources said. In north Kashmir, sources in the defense and security establishment said, there are 88 active terrorists in all, and 66 of them are from Pakistan.
However, in south Kashmir, there are at least 123 active terrorists. According to the sources, only 25 of them are Pakistanis terrorists while the rest are all locals. “The number of recruitment is very high. This is something that has been repeatedly flagged,” said a source, with another adding that it is estimated that the figure could actually reach 180 by the end of this year. According to a study conducted by the Army on the profile of terror recruitment in 2018, 30 percent of the recruits were in the age group of 16-20 years while 60 percent were in the age group of 21-25 years. Only 10 percent of the recruits were in the age group of 26-30 years.
In terms of education, the study showed that 20 percent of the recruits were illiterate while 45 percent had higher secondary schooling and 35 percent were Matriculate. The study also looked at the financial background and showed that 60 percent of the terrorists came from the middle class while 35 percent came from the lower middle class. Only 5 percent of the terrorists came from well-to-do families.
