RESTLESS IN RAJOURI

India’s counterinsurgency grid had been tracking him for a bit. And his prehistory stretched further back: to action in Afghanistan, reputedly to the hazy continuum between the Pakistani army and terror, to epaulettes from the Lashkar-e-Toiba.

- Moazum Mohammad in Srinagar & Pradip R. Sagar

So when the Indian army finally got its man in November, it was the end of a long chapter. All the attention went on the dramatic firefight, in dense woods around Bajimaal, that lasted all of 24 hours. Justly so, for the army had lost five of its men, including two captains. The scalp bought at such a high price was a high-value one too: a pro at jungle warfare and at IEDs, who carried the code-name ‘Qari’.

That, however, did not impart closure on a cycle of terror attacks that had bloodied these parts for more than two years. A month later, on the night of December 20, security forces launched a search operation in the jungles around Dehra ki Gali, 40-odd kilometres away. The next afternoon, two army vehicles en route to the site were ambushed in Poonch’s DKG area: four personnel died. The retributive pattern that followed was dismal but familiar: the spectre of torture and custodial deaths inflamed the area so much that top Union ministers had to come into the picture to douse the fire.