NEW DELHI: The recent spate of civilian killings in Kashmir has triggered an alarm within the security establishment and refreshed memories of the Valley’s bloody past.
As many as 29 civilians have been killed in terror incidents this year, with quite a few of them happening in the last few weeks.
Overall, the Valley has witnessed 185 deaths due to terror in 2021 so far, including that of 134 terrorists.
The uptick in violence comes amid Pakistan-based terror groups like Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba boosting infiltration activities along the LoC.

The Resistance Front and Article 370 link
The attacks in the Valley have been claimed by a shadow outfit of LeT called The Resistance Front or TRF.
Lashkar had planned that responsibility for the terrorist acts would be taken by the pseudo-acronym TRF to maintain plausible deniability and evade law enforcement agencies.
After the abrogation of Article 370, the LeT handlers across the border devised a plan to float the TRF by using its cadre and other terror groups.
The plan was to increase the terror-related activities as a reaction to August 2019 changes.
J&K police sources said that TRF is only a smokescreen created by LeT to maintain deniability and project terrorist attacks in J&K as an indigenous job.
NIA officials confirmed the same.
“The TRF, which is an offshoot of LeT, has been created by Pakistan in an apparent bid to make terrorist groups in Kashmir look like indigenous ones. The group has been getting regular support from the neighbouring country,” said officials in National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Moreover, it is also associated with Pakistan’s efforts to avert a ‘blacklisting’ by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
An organisation of Kashmiri Pandits said last week that the targeted killings of minorities in Jammu and Kashmir is part of a terror plan to prevent them from returning to the Valley.
A bloody past
The recent spate of violence began on October 2 when a temple was desecrated in Anantnag.
On October 5, pharmacy owner Makhan Lal Bindroo was shot dead in his shop in Srinagar and two days later a Sikh woman principal and a Kashmiri Pandit teacher were killed inside the school premises.

The incidents not only frightened minorities but also revived memories of the 1990s when hundreds of Hindus were killed by terrorists and thousands of families fled the erstwhile state.
Coincidently, the incidents have increased since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, although a clear link is not certain.
The Valley had seen some its bloodiest years the last time Taliban were in power.
Following the Taliban’s capture of Kabul on August 15, India has been consistently flagging concerns over possible spillover of terrorist activities from Afghanistan to other countries in the region.