Govt considering `jammers’ for all militancy-hit states

Special Secretary (J&K affairs) in the Home Ministry T R Kakkar, who said he was expecting a detailed report from the State Government over Bhat’s killing admits the gravity of the problem. "We have to strengthen measures to counter IEDs. In J&K in particular, there is a need to make the road opening parties (ROPs) more effective," he said.

Although the Home Ministry’s permission is required to equip a target person’s vehicle with a jammer, senior North Block officials insisted that the decision to have these installed would have to come first from the State Government concerned. But it was a fact, they said, that so far no such request has come from either J&K or Andhra Pradesh, the two states where militants of late have been using IEDs.

Andhra CM Chandrababu Naidu, it is learnt, received a jammer only recently. Others carrying it around to ward off a possible IED blast – the device costs about Rs 20 lakh – include Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, former PMs Chandra Shekhar and H D Deve Gowda, Congressman Bhajan Lal, Punjab CM Prakash Singh Badal and former Youth Congress chief M S Bitta.

Giving details of the Kashmir incident, Kakkar said the Ministry recently seized a copy of a resolution that five top militant organisations – which included the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Hizbul Mujahiddin – issued at a meeting in Poonch early this year.