Ramzan ceasefire: Armed encounters from 2015 to 2017 rose 50% over 2012-14Â

1. Ramzan ceasefire: Armed encounters from 2015 to 2017 rose 50% over 2012-14 Data shows an increase in violence and related deaths, particularly after the July 2016 killing of militant commander Burhan Wani-209 militants were killed in 2017, up 65 per cent from 136 in 2016.

2. The Ramzan ceasefire announced by the Indian government on May 16, 2018, comes after a period of heightened armed violence and killings in Kashmir. An IndiaSpend analysis of Jammu & Kashmir Police data shows that in the three years since March 2015, when the current government assumed power in the state, armed encounters between militants and security forces have increased by 53% over the preceding three years. Deaths in conflict have similarly increased by 51%. The Peoples Democratic Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party formed a coalition government in Jammu & Kashmir in March 2015. Data suggest an increase in violence and related deaths since then, particularly after the July 2016 killing of militant commander Burhan Wani–209 militants were killed in 2017, up 65% from 136 in 2016. The data also attest to a spurt in incidents of stone pelting, pellet and bullet injuries, as well as damage to homes and private property. “The alliance between PDP and BJP was sold to the people with the promise that it would lead to a peace process. But the peace process never took off,” Noor Ahmad Baba, political commentator and former head of Kashmir University’s political science department, told IndiaSpend, “On the contrary, the protests and political dissent in the aftermath of Burhan Wani’s killing is being met with repression. It has further alienated the people especially the youth.” The coalition partners have been at loggerheads over many issues, the latest disagreement having been about the current ceasefire–the PDP’s proposal to New Delhi had been opposed by the state BJP unit, as The Telegraph reported on May 11, 2018, and also by the union defense ministry, as the Hindustan Times reported on May 13. The central home ministry relented eventually and announced a ceasefire. “It is important to isolate the forces that bring a bad name to Islam by resorting to mindless violence and terror,” home minister Rajnath Singh said on Twitter on May 16, 2018. To be sure, Wani’s killing is not the only reason why militancy has registered an increase in Kashmir. “The continuous vicious cycle of violence in the absence of a political dialogue is leaving a huge impact on the mindset of the youth,” Baba said, adding that a new phenomenon is visible in Kashmir in which people risk their lives and rush to encounter sites to support trapped militants during cordon-and-search operations. This, he said, is due to the lack of a meaningful peace process.

3. Nevertheless, the ceasefire is “a step in the right direction,” Baba said, adding that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Srinagar on May 19, 2018, he must make clear whether he intends to kickstart a long-term peace process. “Mr Modi recently went to neighbouring China and then to Nepal. Would he be interested in Pakistan as well? It remains to be seen,” Baba said. By the end of 2016, the number of active militants across Kashmir was 209 (136 militants were also killed in that year), according to a map published by the Crime Branch of Jammu & Kashmir Police in its annual crime gazette. Between 2012 and 2014, the army had estimated that fewer than 100 militants were active in Kashmir, most of them non-locals, as the Hindustan Times reported on April 7, 2015. The spurt in militancy is reflected in the increase in the number of armed encounters between militants and security forces. Between 2012 and 2014, 129 encounters or incidents of cross-firing between government forces and militants were recorded, in which 227 militants (including 60 Kashmiri militants) and 101 security forces (including 48 army personnel) were killed, Jammu & Kashmir Police data show. Encounters registered an increase of 53%, with 247 encounters recorded from 2015 to 2017, in which 439 militants (including 156 Kashmiris) and 200 government forces (including 109 army personnel) were killed. As many as 4,799 incidents of stone pelting took place from 2015 to 2017, as per home ministry data cited in a parliamentary response on February 7, 2018. Stone-pelting is a relatively recent phenomenon, so no comparative figures are available. However, its human toll has been well-documented, and was evident when IndiaSpend visited Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, where most pellet victims with eye injuries come for treatment. Hospital records show that 1,398 patients have been treated here for pellet wounds from January 2015 to May 10, 2018.