Jammu and Kashmir police, who arrested five Lashkar-e-Tayiba operatives for carrying out attacks on security forces on Thursday, said the face of militancy was changing as some ultras were getting motivated by watching videos on social networking sites.
"Two grenade attack cases have been solved as we have busted a module of young men motivated by Lashkar-e-Tayiba," Deputy Inspector General of Central Kashmir Abdul Gani Mir told reporters.
Mir said the three arrested militants, Irfan Ashraf Dar and Ali Mohammad, both residents of north Kashmir's Sopore town, and Khalid Ahmad, a resident of central Kashmir's Nagam village, were in contact with Pakistan-based Lashkar commander Furkan.
Twin blasts in north Kashmir's Baramulla and in Batamaloo on August 25 had left two BSF personnel dead.
"This is an important module as it has revealed that face of militancy is changing. Some days back NIA arrested a person in Delhi high court blast (who was self-motivated)," Mir said, adding he contacted Furkan through Internet and received instructions through it.
Mir said the arrest of Muzafar Mir of Wangath village in Ganderbal district, who was a college student and had shot dead a policeman at Hazratbal earlier this month, led them to the module.
"So far we have arrested five militants from this module," he said, adding these youth apparently led normal lives as two of them attended colleges also.
The senior police officer said Internet and Youtube videos were motivating the youth to join the militant ranks.
"There are videos on Youtube which are motivating (them)," Mir said, adding two of the five militants arrested were influenced by these videos.
"This is a new challenge and we have to face it. It is not only here in Kashmir, we are seeing this phase of militancy throughout the world," Mir said.
