Indian Army hopes for better intelligence flow under Governor’s rule

NEW DELHI: Taking politicians out from the equation, Army expects police to be more forthcoming with intelligence that it depends on for carrying out counter-insurgency ops as well as more elbow room to smoke out terrorists holed up in populated areas.

Having already resumed their “pro-active” CASO (cordon-and-search) and SADO (seek-and-destroy) operations after Ramzan in J&K, security forces believe there will be a “much better flow of intelligence” for targeted counter-insurgency operations in the strife-torn state now.

With J&K headed for governor’s rule, security officials say the state police without any political encumbrances will be better positioned to provide information against terrorists, their over-ground workers (OGWs) and hideouts to the security forces in real time.


“There is some political patronage to hardliners, stone-pelting protesters, OGWs and others in J&K. With no politicians in the equation, security forces will have a much freer hand to ...conduct swift counter-insurgency operations to eliminate terrorists. But only a muscular approach will not do,” said an official.

There is the hope that postings of “capable” bureaucrats and superintendents of police to critical insurgency-prone areas and districts, in the absence of political interference, can lead to better developmental initiatives at the grassroots while boosting the entire counter-terror machinery in the state.

“At present, several good officers are sidelined in J&K. The entire law and order situation has worsened after the killing of Burhan Wani in July 2016. There was very little political outreach or connect with the people, whose genuine grievances were not being heard or addressed,” said another official.

The security forces, on their part, had reluctantly agreed to the decision to suspend counter-insurgency operations in J&K from May 17 to June 17 during Ramzan because of their assessment that terror outfits would use the respite to regroup, re-arm and further build their underground networks.

The Army, for instance, had stressed the non-initiation of combat operations (NICO) undertaken in 2000-2001 by the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee government had largely failed to achieve any concrete results and led to a spike in violence levels.