Army men near an encounter site in Kupwara. Tribune file photo

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 8

Despite dying in regular encounters with security forces in recent years, militants in Kashmir have managed to keep insurgency alive by successfully recruiting new members – most of them young and educated.The number of militants operating in the region over the past few years has remained roughly static even as 435 of them died in the last five years, according to the data shared by the Union Home Ministry in its annual report last month.The militant count in Kashmir has fluctuated in the range of 100 and 200 in recent years even as stricter surveillance along the Line of Control has partly contained the flow of foreign elements.The figures indicate that the region’s long insurgency has made a slow resurgence in recent years, relying mostly on local recruits, despite being battered by a swift counter-insurgency campaign which caused its ranks to shrink to double-digits in 2012, the lowest in its history that now spans into the third decade.At present, there are 130 named militants active in the Kashmir valley while the total number is believed to be anywhere around 150 to 170, said Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, SJM Gilani.“The number of people who are infiltrating and the number of people who are (locally) joining is around the same figure (as those dying),” Gilani told The Tribune, referring to the local recruitment of militants and infiltration of foreign militants as reason for the steady number of militants in the region.Gilani said militants are “putting all their efforts” at local recruitment. Last year, when 108 militants were killed in various gunfights along the Line of Control and in the interiors of the Valley, 72 local youth had joined militant ranks and provided it the sufficient manpower to keep it going.The maximum militant recruits have come from five police districts that constitute south Kashmir, the ground zero of new-age militants and the electoral stronghold of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. In 2015, 59 of the 72 new recruits had come from south Kashmir.In a pattern that has emerged in south Kashmir districts, new recruits quickly substitute for the dead militants. In February 2015, Shabir Ahmad Mir and Idrees Shah were killed in a gun battle in the picturesque Tral sub-district of south Kashmir and a fortnight later Ishaq Parray, a meritorious student, and Saleh Mohammad joined the militant ranks.In April that year, a militant was killed in a forest near Tral and the next day Sabzar Ahmad and Shakir Ahmad joined the militant underground.The trend even dates back to summer of 2013 when a militant commander Shabir Ahmad Bhat and his associates Shahnawaz Mir and Aijaz Ahmad were killed in a fierce gunfight in south Kashmir. Bhat and his two associates were among the 67 militants killed in various gunfights with the security forces in the region that year.Within days of the encounter, a new set of recruits — among them Aqib Bhat, a resident of the slain commander’s village, and engineering student Zakir Rashid — had left their homes and joined the underground network in a trend that has become a signature style of militant recruitment.

Tracking terror

• The number of militants operating in the region over the past few years has remained roughly static even as 435 of them died in the last five years
• The militant count in Kashmir has fluctuated between 100 and 200 in recent years. At present, there are 130 named militants active in Kashmir while the total
• umber is anywhere around 150 to 170
• Last year, 108 militants were killed in gunfights in the Valley, while 72 local youths joined militancy, providing it sufficient manpower to keep it going