TRAGEDY AT REASI
LT COL NOEL ELLIS
12/VI/2024
One more dastardly attack on innocent pilgrims passing through Reasi needs to be condemned. Ten lives have been confirmed lost and 30 injured is heartbreaking.
Every channel I tuned into was blaming Pakistan and their support to terrorism which continues unabated. Why don’t we blame ourselves for a change and accept that we have not been able to screw the daylights out of these so called “misguided’ youth?
Who is misguiding them and why, isn’t it very well known?
A combing operation has been launched. The guilty shall be punished at any ‘cost’, they say. Nonsense! 10+30 lives, a bus, few widows & widowers, orphaned children, bread earners lost, is no less a cost.
Security forces will now be under pressure to hunt them. In the bargain, there could be fatalities and injuries to them too. Locals would be put to inconvenience with road blocks, cordon & searches. Naka’s, frisking & checking would now be suddenly increased manifold. Still those dastards can melt away.
Blaming it on the terrain, proximity to the border and its porousness could contribute to this attack. However, it appears to be a well planned and conceived ambush. It must have taken time to select this particular location and target after exhaustive deliberation.
The execution and then extraction of the group from that area, camouflage and concealment of their move must have undergone in-depth planning and preparation. Rehearsals and reconnaissance would have been done. Communications, inter and intra group and beyond the borders would have taken place but we didn’t have a clue. Why?
The intelligence agencies would have shared inputs which could have been taken lightly or not acted upon. Rightly so, every input cannot be reacted to, the result is infront of us.
Whose area of responsibility was it, needs to be taken to task? If troops were thinned out, what were the alternate security measures put in place? The same can happen at any other location with more ferocity.
This incident will soon be forgotten. Media could only run tickers because there was a bigger event to cover. Every reporter became a counter insurgency specialist, explaining their modus operandi, their handlers across, their known routes of infiltration, role of Pak Army and above all who to blame. Media loves sensationalism like the terrorists. Media needs a story and militants a target to create one for them.
Aren’t the locals sensitive to such situations? Why did any unusual movement go unreported? The local police have their ‘mukhbirs’ or sources. Where were they?
Locals want the Army to be deployed for protection. Forces are in a Catch 22 situation. Damned if they do & damned if they don’t.
We are not addressing the ‘root cause’. Elections or no elections, the administration and security is a very special case in J&K. They function 24x7x366 & overtime. Locals have been armed with weapons but have they been trained in gathering and disseminating information of concern?
All those who paid the price would never be mentioned. The dead will be referred to as ‘dead bodies’ and the lucky ones as ‘injured’. A meagre compensation and the matter will be over. A Court of Inquiry & an after-action report will close the issue. Another tour operator would already be ready to conduct the next batch.
Till the time the difference between what the Pakis call jehadis and we as terrorists is not set straight, we should expect more casualties. This time unsuspecting and unarmed people were hit. Next target could be another Pulwama.
We love doing cosmetics, lip service and taxing the forces, post an incident. The need of the hour is to be proactive, to identify and detect such groups in time to nip the evil in the bud. If need be, teach the people across a lesson. Loss of life matters and is unacceptable. Let the enemy lose lives not us.
There is no ‘ante-mortem’ done to hurt those where it hurts them the most. We fail to eliminate the root cause. “Kutte ki dum seedhi karni hi paregi”. Pakistan has succeeded in giving us a clear cut message. ‘Hum nahi sudhrenge’.
My heartfelt condolences to the families of the diseased and get well soon wishes to the injured. My best wishes to the forces to dig out those dastards and send them to the hoors they want to die for.
A request to every civilian friend. You are the first channel of knowing, detecting, and reporting on suspecting anything which is not routine. Your information could prevent such loss of life.
People like me can only pour out our angst through articles. But, there are loopholes which need to be plugged.
You and I could be the next target. Will the ‘new government’ act? I wonder!!!!!!
JAI HIND
© ® NOEL ELLIS
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