KASHMIR: POLICE REPORT TERRORIST INFILTRATION

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 006523

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/25/2016
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER PINR PBTS MOPS KDEM KISL PK IN
SUBJECT: KASHMIR: POLICE REPORT TERRORIST INFILTRATION
RISING


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Classified By: PolCouns Ted Osius for Reasons 1.4 (B, D)


1. (S) Summary: Military leaders in India sounded an
ominous warning last week, just as Prime Minister Singh was
leaving for his meeting with Pakistani President Musharraf in
Havana, that terrorist infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir
had risen sharply this year. Like many similar press releases
in the past, this one gave no mention of numbers and lacked
detail as to how India's intelligence services know how many
militants come into Jammu and Kashmir. During a recent trip
by PolOff to Srinagar last week, however, police intelligence
sources gave a glimpse into their service's methodology,
demonstrating why they believe they can say with confidence
that the number of terrorists infiltrating from Pakistan in
the first half of this year nearly doubled over the total for
all of last year. End Summary.

Sharp Increase Follows Overall Decline
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2. (S) Director General of J&K Police Gopal Sharma spoke
openly with PolOff about the assessment of a sharp rise in
infiltration numbers this year by intelligence officers under
his command. To put the numbers in context, he explained
that infiltration was at its highest levels in the early
1990's, in 1996, and again in 2002 and 2003. During peak
years, attacks in Srinagar came nearly once an hour on
average. Since then, police officials had witnessed a sharp
decline in infiltration, which he speculated came from a
cease fire that year and agreements between Musharraf and
then-Prime Minister Vajpayee. The numbers overall had
decreased steadily since 2003. Now, however, Sharma said
police officials are worried that infiltration levels are
rising again. Most striking to his forces was the number of
grenade attacks they had witnessed in recent months, with
militants handing children grenades to throw into crowds of
civilians. Sharma noted that his forces had recovered over
2,000 grenades from terrorists this year alone, out of
approximately 57,000 during the entire conflict.


3. (S) Specifically, he said that terrorists were
infiltrating in groups of 4 or 5 and up to 20, with a sharp
spike in numbers this year from May through June. He listed
numbers of individual terrorists infiltrating into Jammu and
Kashmir from Pakistan from 2003 to the first half of this
year as the following:

2003 -- 1,300
2004 -- 500
2005 -- 260
2006 -- 450 (in the first half of the year)

Although he said infiltrations generally tend to slow down
after the summer months, he was concerned that the numbers
would far surpass totals in 2004 by the end of the year. He
also said India's fencing of the Line of Control led
terrorists to change their tactics slightly, bringing more
people along with each group of infiltrators.

Methodology
--------------


4. (S) Additional Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda,
who heads the J&K police intelligence unit -- called the

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Criminal Investigation Department -- reported a similar sharp
rise in infiltration. When asked how J&K police intelligence
service calculates the number of militants, he said there
were several inputs used to compile the information:

-- Interrogations -- Interviews of captured terrorists
was the most prominent means of gathering information.
Terrorists usually reveal how many people were in their group
and which route they used to enter the country. (Comment:
It is unclear whether widely reported incidents of torture
are involved in these interviews, and therefore, how accurate
the information is, especially when comparing information
year by year. We also don't know if a decline in torture
levels as the Jammu and Kashmir government focuses on
improving human rights abuses as part of an overall hearts
and minds campaign also impacted the information. End
Comment.)

-- Sightings along the border -- Police officials said
terrorists often force civilians near the LOC to give their
groups shelter, and that they frequently take along a member
of the family to prevent the civilians from informing the
police until the family member is released and the militants
are a safe distance away. He said that these civilians often
voluntarily provide security forces with extensive
information about the militants.

-- Cover fire -- He also said the Pakistan army and
security forces frequently report incidents of Pakistani
military cover fire for a group of terrorists, allowing them
to add an estimated number to the total.

-- Fence cutting incidents -- Security forces also take
as a given that when they see an incidence of fence cutting
that a terrorism group has infiltrated.

-- Sightings inside J&K -- Civilians also report
encounters with militants to the police forces, adding to the
overall count of militants.

-- Terrorists talking to terrorists -- He said through
intercepts of terrorist groups talking to one another across
the border, his forces were able to learn that there are
regular launching bases in Pakistan, especially in the Poonch
area along the LOC.

Acknowledging that so many separate sources may result in
varying degrees of reliability, he said there was probably a
plus or minus 10 point difference in the count of militants
statistically from year to year.

Terrorist Camps in Pakistan
--------------


5. (S) Khoda also said terrorist training camps continued to
operate inside Pakistan. He said intercepts of terrorists
communicating with one another revealed the presence of
training camps across the border in Pakistan. (Comment: No
further information. End Comment.) As anecdotal evidence, he
noted that in a recent interrogation a surrendered militant
said that he had worked training terrorists in a camp in
Pakistani Kashmir. At an unspecified date this year, the
surrendered militant was asked to go to Pakistan's Gujarat
area to train terrorists. He said he did not want to go to

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Gujarat, so he was allowed to return to the border. There he
subsequently surrendered to Indian forces.

Distrusting Pakistan
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6. (S) Comment: Neither Sharma nor Khoda made any
distinction about whether infiltration of Pakistani
terrorists is sanctioned by the Pakistani government or not.
The assumption of Indian officials, in general, is that if
infiltration is occurring at all, it must be sanctioned by
Pakistan. Although it is unclear what other Indian
intelligence services are telling Indian officials, these
infiltration numbers combined with reports of Pakistani
terrorists coming into the country from Bangladesh contribute
heavily to the overall feeling in India that Pakistan is not
doing enough to curb terrorism.
MULFORD