Army HQ’s Stern Message To Northern Command To Follow Laid Down Counter-Terror Procedures

In the past two months, 10 Indian Army soldiers have been killed in terror attacks in the Rajouri-Poonch region. As a result, the Army Headquarters has had a serious talk with both the Northern Army Command and the 16 Corps commanders to stress how important it is for counter-insurgency operations to follow standard operating procedures.

The Indian Army, along with security agencies and the Jammu and Kashmir Police, is currently running “Operation Trinetra” at full strength to get rid of Pakistani terrorists in the Pir Panjal region. This is because of the terror attack on an Army vehicle at Bhatta Dhurian in Poonch on April 20 and the ambush at Kesari Hill in Rajouri sector on May 5, both of which happened before the G20 meeting in Srinagar from May 22-24.

In both fights, the Indian Army lost five soldiers. Four of these soldiers were from the elite 9 Paratrooper company. Since the two incidents, Army Chief General Manoj Pande has been to the scene, and Northern Army Commander Lt. Gen. Upendra Dwivedi has been to the Rajouri-Poonch area more than once, most recently on Saturday.

A day after the May 5 incident, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh looked at the security situation in the Poonch-Rajouri sector and boosted the morale of the troops involved in CT operations. At the same time, the Army Headquarters laid down the SOPs in the terror-hit districts to prevent any more deaths among the CT formations.

The 16 Corps Commander and the 25 Division commander, who are in charge of the Rajouri-Poonch area as a whole, have been told that SOPs must be followed. Analysis of both attacks after they happened showed that the terrorists could have gotten a better reaction and lives could have been saved if the troopers had followed the rules for deploying and patrolling in areas where terrorists were active.

Both the Poonch and Rajouri killings were done by Habibullah Malik, also known as Sajid Jutt, and his group from Lashkar-e-Toiba in Occupied Kashmir, which is based in Kotli. The Home Ministry has called Jutt a Pakistani terrorist under the UAPA because he helped recruit terrorists in Poonch and dropped guns from a drone. He is married to a Kashmiri Muslim who lives in Pakistan and has a son who lives in the Valley.

The Indian Army has started a planned operation in the 16 Corps sector to make sure there are few losses. The military, with help from security agencies and the UT police, is determined to get revenge for the deaths of 24 troopers and a number of civilians in this area since 2021.