The Wider Repercussions

EVEN as the nation observed Anti-Terrorism Day on May 21 to remind itself of Rajiv Gandhi's assassination five years ago, terrorists chose the day to remind the nation that they were alive, well and ticking. A bomb in south Delhi's busy Lajpat Nagar market killed 13 persons and injured scores of others. The identity of the killers is still not clear though it is believed to be the handiwork of the Jammu and Kashmir Islamic Front (JKIF). Its aim: to thwart the Lok Sabha election back home and prevent popular participation.

Beyond scaring the 40,000 Kashmiri refugees in the capital, neither objective was achieved. But the high-int-militant Kashmiri groups were incapable of striking outside their home turf. On May 22, a bomb went off in a state-run bus in Rajasthan, killing 22 persons. Bombay was on red alert after news came in that a member of the Lashkar-al-Sajjad had entered the city. Says corps commander, Major-General J.S. Dhillon: "With the army stepping up pressure in the Valley, militants are beginning to look for targets elsewhere."

Few buy Dhillon's theory.Saifuddin Soz of the National Conference won't even talk about the growing reach of Kashmiri militancy. Says A.A. Khan, who headed Maharashtra's anti-terrorist squad: "Kashmiri militants don't have the kind of base and backing Punjab militants had. They stand out or are turned in." 

The Front started out in 1989 under the auspices of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) as the Jammu and Kashmir Students' Liberation Front (JKSLF), gaining notoriety for taking the then home minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed's daughter, Rubaiya, and Indian Oil executive V. Doraiswamy hostage. But the killing of Kashmir University Vice-Chancellor Mushir-ul-Haq and HMT General Manager H.L. Khera saw JKSLF's breakaway from the JKLF.

Its chief patron, Hilal Beig, renamed the organisation the Ikhwan-ul-Muslimoon, but the arrest of its top leaders, increasing hostility with the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and other pressures from within and outside created ideological and organisational dissensions in the group. Consequently, two new Ikhwan outfits sprung up.

Ikhwan-ul-Muslimoon survived and remained in Srinagar. The JKIF was born after Sajjad Ahmad Kenu escaped from a high security sub-jail in Srinagar early last year and began talking to his former colleagues. Sajjad was killed by the Special Operations Group of the state police in January 1996, following his return from Delhi where he allegedly masterminded the Sadar Bazaar blast. But the seeds were sown for the birth of the Front.