Freedom fighters keeping IIOJ&K on ‘low boil’

HELD SRINAGAR: Indian occupying forces believe freedom fighters’ attacks in the occupied Kashmir will continue but on a smaller scale to keep the dispute alive.

“It will remain like this on low boil, as long as Kashmir is divided (between India and Pakistan),” a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists.

“The attacks are not merely about killing, but also to set a narrative to counter the Indian narrative — that everything is fine,” said the former head of India´s Northern Command forces, retired general Deependra Singh Hooda.

“The larger message being sent out is that the problem in Kashmir is alive,” Hooda said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi´s Hindu nationalist government cancelled the Muslim-majority region´s partial autonomy in 2019, a decision accompanied by mass arrests and a months-long communications blackout, insisting it helped bring “peace, development and prosperity” to the region.

But military experts say that small bands of fighters — demanding either independence or Kashmir´s merger with Pakistan — use attacks to contradict the government’s claims.

India blames Pakistan for arming militants and helping them “infiltrate” across the militarised dividing line to launch attacks, an allegation Islamabad denies. Pakistan maintains that it extends moral support to the people of Indian Illegally-Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K) and the ongoing strife there is purely indigenous.

Many clashes take place in forested mountains far from larger settlements, but the huge military presence is visible in sprawling camps and roadblocks .