Over the past month, there has been a significant upsurge in online activity associated with Pakistan and PoK-based terrorist groups. Intelligence agencies here believe these have been attempts at reinstituting terrorism and secessionism in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) by inducting local youth into terrorist ranks. Reports coming in from Indian security sources are that this drastic uptick on social media is being closely monitored.
Between October and November this year, India’s security agencies detected more than 2,000 posts marked as concerning. This was more than a 22-fold rise in comparison with the same period in 2023 where only 89 posts in the same stream were created.
The posting was most prolific on streams like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, and Dark Web. These included exhortations to terrorism and secessionism, incitement to attack public infrastructure and institutions of learning. Of the posts, over 130 were on terrorism, while separatism was called for in 33 and more than 300 threatened schools and hospitals, among other public spaces.
New Recruitment Campaign Among Locals
This wave of social media activism, one senior officer in India’s security establishment claims, is a targeted effort at reaching the youth of Kashmir. He also said that on-the-ground propaganda had been a highly successful tool in the past, saying that Burhan Wani of Hizbul Mujahideen, for instance, was a terrorist who became a pan-Valley icon among militants before being killed in 2016. Now, the intent is to radicalize and recruit young Kashmiris into anti-national activities.
But that is not reflected in numbers. Local recruitment into terrorist outfits has steeply declined. Till date, four local youths are reportedly recruited by terrorist organizations till November 2024, whereas 22 in 2023, and 113 in 2022. Currently, it is estimated that only around 30 local terrorists are functionally active in J&K, which is way down from 75-80 foreign militants. Security officials point out that all the above steps of recruiting locals are indirectly a part of preparation for an increased spurt of terror activities in summer 2025.
A Roaring Response From The Authorities
This is because of the downward trend in local recruitment due to aggressive counter-terror strategies by the central and the Jammu & Kashmir governments. This zero-tolerance approach to terrorism is an ambitious approach aimed at neutralizing the whole terror infrastructure, not just individually killing militants. It seeks to strangle the means by which terrorist groups access funds and people for their activities-choking sources of funds and overground workers trying to infiltrate the political system among others.
There was concern that the step-up in online recruitment by terrorists took place simultaneously with an elected government being set up in Jammu & Kashmir. Agencies are investigating if the political shifts have encouraged Pakistan-based terror operatives to relitigate the state. There is all reason to believe that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is eager to target several key leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) in Kashmir, as intelligence inputs indicated. The two these moves are presumed to be either an attempt to provoke public disturbance or payback for JeI’s recent attempts to enter the political arena by contesting the J&K assembly elections.
Growing Drone Risks In J&K
While the threat of drones looming large over J&K is serious, there have been reports of 40 drone sightings in the region as of October 2024. It is an increase from 31 such reports in the same period last year. Surveillance, smuggling weapons, and even carrying out an attack is another new dimension to the security challenges that have been arising in Jammu & Kashmir over the last few years.
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