For Lashkar, Bandipore was the sensational signature tune they would repeat in every subsequent operation. Within months, this tactic would alter alter the balance in favour of militants, putting unbelievable pressure on the security forces, who would now find even their fortified camps unsafe.

In fact, between November 3, 1999, and December 31, 2000, Lashkar was involved in 15 out of 19 major suicide strikes in Jammu and Kashmir. Security forces estimate at least 50 personnel were killed in these attacks and another 70 injured. In 2001, Lashkar was responsible for 23 out of 28 fidayeen attacks, killing 83 security force personnel and injuring another 135.

However, it was Lashkar’s first major strike outside J&K—on the Cantonment section of the Red Fort in New Delhi on December, 22, 2000—that transformed it into the region’s most lethal militant group. Though the toll in the strike was relatively low—three armymen died in the incident—it was a major psychological boost for pan-Islamic Jihadi groups for whom the strike over this Mughal fort that had acted as the heart of the Muslim empire in India was a symbolic victory for their goal that transcends the ‘‘right of self-determination’’ of Kashmiris—the main aim of almost all the separatist groups in the state.

Roots of Terror

LASHKAR-e-Toiba (literally, the Army of the Pious) was first launched in 1987 with an aim to participate in the Afghan war. Its militants fought the Russians in the Haji area of Paknea province along with the Afghan mujahideen outfit Itihad-e-Islami. But as the Afghan war was at its fag end, the group did not get win any limelight for its operations against the Russians.

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