Bharti Jain
New Delhi: An exponential rise in social media activity over the past month by Pakistan and PoK-based terrorist handles, aimed at glamourising terrorism and secessionism in J&K, as well as threatening anti-India posts, is being viewed by Indian security agencies as “a fresh bid by Pakistan-backed terror outfits to revive local terror recruitment in J&K”, according to intelligence sources.
An analysis by the agencies here of anti-India activities across “identified” Pakistan and PoK-based terror-linked accounts on platforms like Facebook, X, Telegram, Dark Web etc, revealed over 2,000 ‘posts of concern’ in the past one month alone (Oct-Nov), as against 89 during the corresponding period of 2023. This translates to a more than 22-fold rise.
Of the nearly 2,016 objectionable posts, more that 130 each were terrorism-specific and anti-India rants, 33 backed separatism and secessionism, and 310 were in the nature of threats to infrastructure and public places like schools etc, TOI has learnt.
A senior officer in the central security establishment told TOI that the social media route to influence and exploit impressional minds of J&K youths and radicalise them for anti-national activities – something that had seen young Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani turn into a terror icon before he was killed in 2016 – follows a sharp decline in the number of local Kashmiris joining terrorist outfits. Just four locals in J&K – two from Shopian and one each from Srinagar and Tral – were recruited for terrorist activities till Nov this year, down from 22 in 2023 and 113 in 2022. In fact, there are only 30 local terrorists operating in J&K as of now, as against 75-80 foreign terrorists.
“Attempts at raising local recruitment may not point to plans for a troubled winter but to preparations for heightened terror activity in the summer of 2025,” said an officer.
The decline in local recruitment in the past few years was attributed by a senior J&K govt functionary to the central and the UT administration’s zero-tolerance approach to terror over the past few years, which focused not only on tackling terrorists but also on dismantling the terror eco-system by choking funding and cracking down on overground supporters by denying them govt jobs and clearances for passports, driving licence, etc.
Interestingly, the rise in terrorist outfits’ social media outreach to J&K youths coincides with the installation of an elected govt in the UT.
Agencies are probing whether the changed power equations in J&K, even though control of police remains with the LG, have emboldened the Pakistan-based terrorist masterminds to whip up trouble there. A recent intelligence input warned of the plan of Pakistan’s ISI to target over a dozen Jamaat-e-Islami leaders in Kashmir through their terror associates “in the near future”. This could be to create public unrest or possibly linked to JeI’s decision to enter the political space by contesting the recent J&K assembly elections, a source told TOI.
Drone activity, meanwhile, continues to be a concern in J&K, with 40 sightings reported until Oct this year as compared to 31 in the corresponding period of 2023.