Srinagar, Mar 14: In a significant development, the Jammu and Kashmir police have busted Pakistan's external spy agency ISI's method of wooing Kashmiri boys into terror ranks by taking them to the neighbouring country using passport and later infiltrating them into the Valley along with mercenaries.

 

This came after the J&K police interrogated some of the youths arrested after infiltrating into the Union Territory. They said that the ISI was pressing terrorists to get youths from the valley by any means, be it for educational and religious purpose or social functions.

 

Apart from this, some of the Kashmiri youths who visited Pakistan through legal channels to meet their relatives were also targeted and even given a crash course of two weeks on handling of explosives and firing from a close range.

 

 

However, after the Jammu and Kashmir Police implemented a new regime with additional checks and balances, there has been no report of anyone going to Pakistan on a valid travel document for terrorist training. The passports issued between 2015 and early 2018 were scrutinised and it was found that around 60 Kashmiri youths, who were later found active in terror ranks, had used the travel document to visit Pakistan and later joined terror ranks.

One among them was Sajad Ahmad Sheikh alias Sajad Gull, a resident of Srinagar, who was involved in the killing of Shujat Bukhari, the editor-in-chief of a local daily, in 2018. The Union Home Ministry has designated Sheikh as a "terrorist" and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh on information leading to his arrest.

 

As many as 26 such youths had either been killed while infiltrating or during encounters with security forces. An attempt was made to speak to some of the family members of the slain militants but none of them was willing to talk about it or recollect the incident other than expressing remorse for allowing their children to travel to the neighbouring country.

The initial alarm bells started ringing when security forces, during an encounter in 2019, identified one of the terrorists as Shakir Altaf Bhat, who had left the country on a valid passport for studies in Pakistan in 2018 and returned after joining a terror group.

Besides him, there were several Kashmiri youths who travelled to Pakistan on valid passports for short durations, have either not come back or disappeared after their return in the last three years. The officials said that some of the youths were provided a quick module of fabrication of improvised explosive devices using easily available material within a week's time.

 

The recruitment of youths for various terror organisations is also being carried out discreetly and it is quite possible that these youths could also be doubling up as "recruiters" for brainwashing of vulnerable men in the militancy-affected Union Territory.

The missing youths are mainly from average middle-class families and have been described as the new faces of terrorism in Kashmir. They could be waiting for delivery of arms and ammunition, which has been substantially choked due to heightened surveillance along the Line of Control.