Days before the deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, intelligence agencies had flagged the potential targeting of tourists especially those staying in hotels on the outskirts of Srinagar in the foothills of the Zabarwan range, officials said on Saturday.
This prompted a heightened security presence in these areas with top police brass camping in Srinagar to oversee combing operations around Dachigam, Nishat and adjacent areas.
These areas gained attention and security forces increased patrolling because of a terrorist attack on a construction site in Gagangir, Sonamarg, in October last year in which seven persons, including a doctor, were killed. The area is located on the other side of Zabarwan range overlooking Srinagar city.
Despite a two-week operation, security forces conducted extensive searches on the outskirts of Srinagar based on the intelligence, but these efforts did not yield any breakthroughs and the operation was called off on April 22, the day when terrorists targeted tourists in Pahalgam.
There were inputs to suggest that terrorists wanted to carry out such nefarious designs during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier last month to flag off the first train from Katra to Srinagar. “Definitely, Pakistan is not happy over the impending railway link that aims to connect the Kashmir valley with the rest of the country,” the officials said. They, however, added that the PM’s visit, earlier scheduled for April 19, was postponed due to adverse weather forecasts.
The officials made it clear that while weather was the sole reason for the postponement, fresh inauguration dates were expected to be announced soon.
The state and non-state actors sitting across the border never wanted the powerful visuals of flagging off the first train to get international attention and hence might have planned to overshadow the event with such barbaric killings, the officials said.
On the Pahalgam attack, the officials said what was emerging was that two local terrorists had already mingled with the tourists and as soon as the first shots were fired, they herded the tourists to a food court complex, where two other terrorists, reportedly Pakistanis, fired and killed 26 persons.
The aim of the attack seemed to be creating fear among the citizens and possibly to lead to retribution attacks against Kashmiris elsewhere in the country, the sources said.
The officials have also reported a worrisome trend in J&K following the recovery of advanced weaponry like M-series rifles, sniper rifles and armour-piercing bullets from encounter locations. These are suspected to be leftover weapons and ammunition of NATO troops in Afghanistan.
The authorities also warned against depending on the tourist arrivals in J&K solely as a marker of peace and noted the case of former CM Ghulam Nabi Azad, who had used tourist arrivals as an index of normalcy in the past.
Shortly after his statement in May 2006, four tourists were killed and six others injured when terrorists attacked a bus carrying tourists from Gujarat in Srinagar as it was reaching the Mughal Gardens.
According to the officials, in a conflict zone, tourism should primarily be viewed as an economic activity rather than a barometer for gauging normalcy.
