How Kashmir copes with grenade attacks

Over a 100 grenade explosions. 45 people killed, 10 security personnel among them. 450 injured, a sizable number of them affected for life. That is the story of the Kashmir Valley so far this year.

If death came in the form of car bomb explosions last year, grenade attacks have been the most preferred vehicle of terror this year.

Even as the security forces were getting on top of the modus operandi of the car bomb explosions, the terrorists moved ahead – lobbing grenades at unsuspecting crowds before making good their escape.

The militants even lobbed one into a bus carrying Amarnath pilgrims on June 21, injuring five.

The spate of attacks, some of them targeting tourists and pilgrims, had resulted in an alarming decrease in the number of tourists to Kashmir during the otherwise peak season.

As the time between attacks started coming down drastically, the Jammu and Kashmir police hit upon an idea.

Since the militants were using crowd cover, the police sought the citizens' help. They announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh and a job for anybody who caught, helped them catch or lead them to a militant and helped in thwarting a grenade attack.

"The problem is that once the militant has thrown the grenade, he can easily mix with the crowd. Well, also, after the explosion, the thrower has nothing to hide," said a state officer. The police drive, which has reached the public, thanks to paid advertisements in local newspapers, is paying off.

The response has been encouraging. In a short span, three arrests have been made with citizens' help.

"The militant to be caught and handed over to the police by the locals was Mohammad Afzal Rather who was caught after he threw a grenade at the tourist reception centre taxi stand on July 11. The second was Hanief Bengali who was caught on the basis of information provided to us by locals.

"Rafiq alias Raju was the third to fall into the police net because of the information given by the people. He was involved in the recent grenade attacks on tourists," said another senior police officer.

The police have also confirmed that in these three cases the people who either caught the militant or led to his arrest were rewarded and have also been given a government job.

Interestingly, state Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad told the state legislature which concluded its six-day session recently that so far over 57,000 grenades had been seized from the militants by the security forces since the first grenade attack shook the region this year.

"You can well imagine how many grenades must still be in the possession of the militants," Azad had said.