Authentic fakes

Every authentic surrender of a militant in Jammu and Kashmir holds great significance because it means a defeat — in however modest a fashion — of a project of terror and calculated hate. If, however, this surrender process loses its credibility, if unemployed men are passed off as militants, India loses greatly in its battle against the insurgents. Remember, this is as much a mind-war as it is one of physical attrition.

This is why the Express reports on the fake surrenders of Nagrota are disturbing. The army in the state — not the police, interestingly — have denied that there were 27 fake surrenders in the batch of 47 men who had laid down their arms on November 9. But further investigation by this newspaper revealed how a Congress worker cynically exploited ignorant villagers to pose as reformed militants. The matter needs to be taken up seriously and the cynical middlemen brought to swift justice because there seems to be a flourishing racket in these surrender exercises. The Mufti Mohammad Sayeed government had, in January this year, announced a new rehabilitation package for those serious about giving up the gun, with fairly generous terms. Not only would they be entitled to a sum of Rs 1.50 lakh, which would be released at the end of three years of “good behaviour”, they were to get a monthly stipend of Rs 2,000 as well. While rewarding those who return to mainstream life is an important measure to support a difficult choice — many surrendered militants live with the fear of retaliatory attacks — scrupulous care should surely have been taken to ensure that only the authentic cases benefit?

The state government must now review every case systematically and weed out the fake ones. In March, the state government had announced that as many as 2,299 militants had surrendered before the security forces in the state since ’95. The country would now like to know just how many of these are genuine cases and how many, authentic fakes.