SRINAGAR: Faced with people in Kashmir increasingly refusing to give them refuge, terrorists are going back to taking shelter in mosques and madrassas that not only help them evade security forces but also provide them a school of young minds to indoctrinate, officials said on Monday.
The people’s reluctance to help terrorists and the government’s decision to heighten the vigil and seize any house that shelters militants have led to terror groups adopting their old tactic.
According to the officials, sustained efforts by both the government and security forces have effected a major change in the way the common people in Kashmir look at the terrorism and radical ideology being propagated from Pakistan. They are no longer inclined to provide shelter and other aids to terrorists.
In the early 1990s, terrorists often used to hide in the Hazratbal Shrine as well as Charar-e-Sharief leading to massive stand-offs with security forces.
An analysis of recent encounters, particularly in south Kashmir, conducted by security forces revealed that Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are again using places of worship and religious schools as shelters.
This disturbing trend was visible in three encounters in Kulgam, Naina Batpora and Chiva Kalan in the past few weeks, the officials said.
Terrorists had deliberately taken shelter in mosques and madrassas with the dual aim of avoiding detection and inciting religious sentiments by instigating the use of force or firing by security forces.
Rauf, a terrorist who was apprehended by the Army in Pulwama district of south Kashmir recently, told his interrogators that they had been taking shelter in a mosque and posing as preachers whenever the security forces closed in on them, the officials said.
Two Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, who were killed in the encounter in Chiva Kalan in Pulwama district, had been hiding inside a mosque. One of the slain terrorists was a Pakistani national.
This madrassa was set up by Maulvi Naseer Ahmed Malik in 2020 and prior to that, he was an imam at Jamia Masjid in Chiva Kalan for six to seven years.
Simultaneously, he used to impart religious teachings to young children of the village aged between 4 and 10 years.
Since 2016, Malik has been involved in collecting ‘zakat’ (donation) from several villages in Pulwama, Budgam, Srinagar, Kulgam and Anantnag districts.
The suspicion that he might be using the donations to help Pakistan-sponsored terrorists was proved right by documents recovered from the encounter site in Chiva Kalan. It was also found that the terrorists killed at the madrassa were residing there for at least two months.
