JAMMU: The Jammu and Kashmir police are slated to raise two battalions of the India Reserve
Force to combat militants in the State, These battalions will be specially trained and equipped, said the Director General of Police M. N, Sabarwal.
The Jammu and Kashmir police have remained by and large dormant since the outbreak of Pak sponsored militancy in the Valley but, of late operations have assumed priority besides normal
Policing as more and more people eschew the militants are coming ‘out openly, against the scourge.
After the encouraging results of the experimental deployment of Special Task Force police in Srinagar, the Director General of Police has ordered deployment of similar task forces in other districts too; these forces will function under recently positioned superintendents of police in each district and will organize operations from the nucleus of the district police.
Efforts are on to make use of focal knowledge of terrain and to provide the people with greater mobility and sophisticated weapons.
The task force set up in Srinagar in June last, has already to its credit the arrest or killing of 14 militants including some self-styled chiefs and military commanders militant outfits. Two of them, responsible for about 30 accidents of grenade attacks and several incidents of firing on security forces, were arrested in the Residency area of Srinagar on October 18.
An award of Rs 50,000 was sanctioned to this group for their good work.
The Task Force is proving to be a boon in fighting. It collects information and organizes its own operations and has met with a reasonable amount of success. In fact, several organizations, threatened by the force, have even issued “death warrants” against the task force.
Article extracted from this publication >> October 28, 1994
