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After Naxalities, now militants in J&K favoring IEDs, bombs and grenades

Vikas Sharma. Dated: 2/18/2019 11:56:52 AM

SUCH INCIDENTS ROSE BY 57 PER CENT IN J&K

VIKAS SHARMA Jammu, Feb 17 Earlier, IEDs, bombs and grenades were used frequently by the Naxals in Naxal affected areas but now these days, the militants in Jammu and Kashmir are also favoring the use of IED impacts and other shelling occurrences which has seen a 57 percent bounce. While the state that shares border with both Pakistan and China saw a total of 37 incidents of bombing (improvised explosive device and explosive ordnance triggered) in 2014, these incidents grew to 46 in 2015, 69 in 2016, 70 in 2017 and as high as 117 during the last year, says a report presented by the National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC). According to the report, the NBDC of the elite ‘black cats’ commando force is the national repository of all IED and bombing incidents that take place in the country and the unit also conducts post-blast investigation of all such incidents, including the Pulwama blast case. The report made a special mention of J-K and the growing threat of IED and similar explosives in the state at a time when investigators suspect that the deadly attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama on February 14 wasexecuted by a ‘lone wolf’ Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist by blowing off a 20-kg strong RDX mix explosive, laden in a car, next to a troop-carrier bus plying as part of a convoy on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway.
“There was considerable decrease in IED blast incidents in all regions of the country except in J-K where terrorists resorted to increased use of IEDs during 2018,” said an official.
It added that while IED blast incidents reduced to 77 last year from 98 in 2017 in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) hit areas of the country, such incidents in J-K rose by 57 per cent from 21 in 2017 to 33 during last year.
The IED blast incidents in the north east insurgency theatre reduced to 32 last year as compared to 66 in the year 2017, indicating a decrease of 52 per cent.
The report said while there was a “steep decrease” in the number of IED blast incidents in the country as a whole, fatalities due to these explosions increased “considerably” in all the violence theatres of J-K, LWE and North East.
In 2017, while a total of 244 incidents of IED blasts took place in the country leading to 61 deaths, the last year witnessed only 174 such incidents but a higher number of deaths at 108.
The improvised explosives claimed 13 lives in the state that is reeling under terrorism for past many decades.