IT was July 13, 1999. The two-month-long Kargil war was finally drawing to a close when sketchy details of a major militant attack began pouring in from Bandipore, 58 km to the north of Srinagar.

Unlike the ‘hit-and-run’ strategy adopted by Kashmiri militants for years, this attack saw a group of militants sneaking into the highly fortified headquarters of the Deputy Inspector-General of the Border Security Force situated on the Madar hills in the outskirts of Bandipore town. The militants scaled the eastern wall of the camp and ran straight to the residential compound, where they holed themselves up after killing six BSF personnel, including the Deputy-General himself.

The operation to flush out the militants took more than 24 hours, with the paramilitary force needing to call in the special forces of the army (paras). The National Security Guard personnel, too, had to be flown in to take part in the operation.

The militants had just changed the rules of the game.

Out of Oblivion

THE sensational attack was the first in Kashmir to deploy a special cadre of militants who would wilfully go into a suicide assault. The group that blasted its way into the headlines was Lashkar-e-Toiba, a Pakistan-based Jihadi organisation that began putting down roots in Kashmir in 1993.

The Fidayeen (suicide) attack took Lashkar out of the oblivion and put it at the heart of the militant movement in Kashmir, where years of counter-insurgency operations—including the fierce campaign by government-sponsored renegade militants called Ikhwan—had literally broken the resistance of indigenous groups like the Hizbul Mujahideen.

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.

The group soon shifted its attention towards Kashmir and, according to the security agencies in Srinagar, its Valley operations began in 1993. For years, the group stayed below the radar, so much so that government agencies had little clue about its ideology and cadre.

In 1997, United States proscribed Harkatul-Mujahideen—the largest pan-Islamic militant outfit then operating in the Valley—as a foreign terrorist organisation, turning it into a tactical nightmare for the ‘‘Kashmir cause’’ internationally. And as Harkat was slowly marginalised, Lashkar got an opportunity to make its presence felt. They began their strikes, choosing certain pockets of strength i the Valley, and also building bases in the Muslim-dominated districts of Doda, Rajouri, Poonch and the hilly areas of Udhampur in Jammu province.

In fact, Lashkar was set up as the armed wing of the pan-Islamic Markaz-e-Dawat-ul-Irshad, which was launched in 1985 with its headquarters at Murdike near Lahore. Markaz, which had established a network of around 2,200 madrasas across the country, has a clear agenda and ideology. Starting with the complete Islamisation of Pakistan and Kashmir, it hopes Islam will finally dominate the world.

For this, the organisation established the Jamia Dawat-ul-Islam, or the University of Dawat-ul-Islam, in 1989. Located on a four-acre campus, it imparts religious education. According to an essay in the Lashkar mouthpiece Jihad Times, around ‘‘50 of the students of this university have died fighting in Kashmir’’.

The basic ideology of the group states that religion is not the private affair of Muslims and politics cannot be separated from religion. In fact, Markaz rejects democracy as a western concept full of flaws.

Orders & Options

In their November 1997 annual conference, the Markaz’s Amir Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed—a former professor of engineering—clearly articulated the group’s ideology which is against the separation of religion from state. Rejecting democracy, the group’s ideology is based on ‘‘the notion of the sovereignty of the people as un-Islamic because only Allah is sovereign.’’

Sayeed told the congregation that ‘‘God has ordained every Muslim to fight until His rule is established. We have no option but to follow God’s order. We continue to support other Islamic organisations in the world. This is a very long battle.’’

In fact, it is this ideology that makes Lashkar both in it action and aim different from all other militant groups operating in Kashmir. Lashkar’s puritan ideology transcends the separatist aim to achieve ‘‘right of self-determination for Kashmiris’’ and its mission expands to the entire ummah (Muslim world) with Kashmir one of the several battlegrounds in their pan-Islamic struggle.

After the ban on the outfit in Pakistan, Lashkar’s top boss Hafiz Mohammad Sayeed distanced himself from the outfit, replacing himself by a Kashmiri commander. In fact, its parent group Markaz, too, changed its name and set up another organisation called Jamat-ud-Dawa, with an exclusive aim to reform Pakistani society.

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