According to sources in the security and intelligence set up, almost 70 terrorists have infiltrated into India in May, as against just 43 last year during the same month.
NEW DELHI: For the second month in running, terrorist infiltration levels in Kashmir have hit a record high, forcing the Indian security establishment to begin a pragmatic assessment of the Kashmir scenario, different from its traditional hawkish stand on the issue.
According to sources in the security and intelligence set up, almost 70 terrorists have infiltrated into India in May, as against just 43 last year during the same month. The sudden spurt in infiltration levels started in April, when around 80 of them came in, which led the government to accuse the Pakistan Army and ISI of facilitating infiltration.
However, corresponding to the increase in infiltration there is no corroborative rise in violence level. And that is forcing the pragmatists within the establishment to call for a more nuanced analysis of the Kashmir situation.
Sources said Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta met senior security and intelligence officers in Srinagar on Thursday to figure out a more acceptable means of assessing the rising infiltration and dropping violence levels.
All available indications are that the rising infiltration figures may be good from an Indian perspective, and is the best visible signs of violence fatigue among the Kashmiri militants. But, for Indian establishment to accept that point of view would require much more proof, search for which has begun with the high-level meeting on Thursday in Srinagar.
The drop in violence-- newly infiltrating terrorists generally carry out sensational attacks -- has stirred major debate within the intelligence and security establishment about the real reasons behind the extremely high number of infiltrations in April and May.
According to sources in intelligence agencies, over the past few weeks there have been confirmed reports of Kashmiri militants, who had crossed over to PoK in the past, returning to houses and buildings closer to the Line of Control. In the wake of 9/11, Pakistani agencies had forced the Kashmiri militants to move far into interiors of PoK, and most of them were detained in about six or seven camps.
But now they have returned close to the border, and this may be an effort to facilitate their return to Indian side. Unlike the past, they may not be returning to wage an armed fight, but to surrender and return to normal life.
"It looks like that the other side wants these militants to return to Jammu and Kashmir for good. They are no more providing any significant support to the Kashmiri militants on their side," says a senior official in Jammu and Kashmir.
Sources admit that terrorists belonging to L-e-T, Jaish-e-Mohammed, many of them Pakistanis and all of them ready to fight, are coming into the state. "But we have no real assessment of their numbers," says an official.
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