Expect the unexpected

The tragic deaths of Brigadier B S Shergill, Col R S Chouhan and three jawans in a landmine explosion in Kupwara district underline the na...

The tragic deaths of Brigadier B S Shergill, Col R S Chouhan and three jawans in a landmine explosion in Kupwara district underline the nature of the danger army and security force personnel are exposed to on a daily basis in Kashmir. The war in Kashmir is coming closer home every day; the hapless Brigadier was the father of an Express staffer. For soldiers trained for set piece confrontations with a known enemy, terrorist tactics with landmines detonated by remote control or the sudden ambush are a different kind of menace because they tend to occur in friendly territory or territory believed to have been sanitised8217;. Nothing in the book could have prepared Shergill or Chouhan for the fatal encounter with an 8220;improvised explosive device8221; just four kilometres outside battalion headquarters. While the planting of the landmine virtually within sight and hearing of a Rashtriya Rifles battalion testifies to the skill and daring of the terrorists, it also points to the failure of the army8217;s routine landminedetection drills and existing equipment.

The officers and the scores of jawans and others who fell in landmine explosions this year will not have died in vain if the appropriate lesson is learned by all those on the ground and behind desks who are responsible for counter-insurgency operations. That lesson is to expect the unexpected.

No one would have expected a road crawling with military personnel, a road checked out thoroughly everyday by what is called a 8220;road opening party8221; to be mined or if mined that it would go undetected. The decoy blast at Residency Road was a trap no one anticipated.

The suicide assaults on or occupation of security establishments by groups of two or three militants were unexpected. To deny the terrorist the advantage of surprise is one of the hardest tasks in counter-insurgency operations. Slow painstaking information-gathering and assessment is an essential factor in overcoming surprise. Prevailing conditions in Kashmir are not as favourable for information-gathering as they could have been and the security forces as well as the government need to think of ways of improving access to information. Investing in more trained manpower and more specialised equipment for this purpose should be considered. Earning the confidence of the local population and giving them a stake in the outcome of counter-insurgency operations will be crucial to the success of the security forces.

The army is said to be handicapped by a shortage of specialised equipment such as jamming devices and armoured vehicles. If true, it is quite shocking. After all the experience of the past it was thought due care would be taken at the highest levels to ensure officers and jawans are not sent into unknown and hostile territory badly equipped. More deaths from landmines can be prevented. The Hizb-ul-Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for most of the major landmine incidents. The pattern shows detonation with remote control devices is the preferred method because victims can be targeted precisely and civilian casualties avoided. There should be no more delay in acquiring powerful jamming devices to frustrate the Hizb or any other group using similar tactics.