Did Srinagar attack carry a bigger message? (News Analysis)

NEW DELHI - The militant attack in the middle of the day in downtown Srinagar caught security forces unawares and came amid reports of a marked improvement in the ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to home ministry figures, there had been a 25 percent drop in terrorist violence in 2009 as compared to the previous year.

“The militants also want to send out a message that they still have a presence. They timed the attack when Omar Abdullah’s government completed its first year in office and listed among its achievements an improved security situation,” said a security official.

Just last year, two army divisions comprising around 30,000 troops were moved out of Kashmir and the government was contemplating a further reduction if the security climate improved.

Paramilitary presence in the state had also been “rationalised”, or thinned out, over the past couple of years.

National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan had recently indicated there was a further possibility of thinning military presence.

“If the situation continues to improve, which is apparent at the moment, there is scope for further reduction of troops,” Narayanan was quoted as saying this week.

The army has also begun withdrawing troops from the Rajouri and Poonch districts of Jammu and Kashmir in a move seen as a confidence building measure to get Kashmiri separatists, especially the hardliners, on board for talks.

It has not been lost on the security establishment that the attack was a warning to the moderate Hurriyat group against talks with the central government, analysts said. Home minister P. Chidambaram, the brain behind the “quiet talks, quiet diplomacy” has been initiating backroom parleys with some of the moderate separatist leaders.

The ‘fidayeen’ attack that turned Lal Chowk into a battle zone has come as a wake-up call for the government that quickly strengthened security in government installations and military camps in the volatile state’s summer capital.

Refusing to divulge details of the reinforced security in Srinagar — after the 23-hour terror siege of the city’s nerve centre ended Thursday with four people, including two guerrillas, being killed — senior security officials said they hoped it was not a trigger for the escalation of violence just when troops had been thinned out as a confidence building measure.

“Violence levels may have fallen but infiltration has been continuing in many places. Let there be no mistake on this,” said the state’s police chief Kuldeep Khoda after the prolonged gunfight.

“We will have to be on our guard. We foiled almost 400 attempts last year through the Line of Control (LoC).”

How many militants got through is still a matter of conjecture.

The last such attack was at the Dal Lake area in October 2007 and like the Lal Chowk gunbattle was carried out by two terrorists.

Terrorism expert Ajay Sahni believes the suicide attack was not a precursor of more violence to come but there could be a further calibration of armed forces if violence went up.

“This incident alone should not be measure of what is likely to happen. Why it got so much attention was because of the location and the protracted gun-battle,” Sahni told IANS.

“But let us be certain that infiltration is very much on and mobilisation of street violence, demonstrations are part of the effort to weaken systems.”