NEW DELHI: The Centre sees a direct link between the recent spurt in infiltration bids by
Pakistan across the border along Kashmir, with the government's efforts to hold panchayat elections in the state, top government sources told TOI.
According to sources, one of the main reasons behind a spurt in infiltration bids and
ceasefire violations along the India-Pakistan border along Kashmir is to defeat the democratic process in Kashmir and prevent panchayat elections from taking place, as that gives India a leg up on Pakistan as far as its image in the international community is concerned.
While the
Mehbooba Mufti government in Srinagar has maintained that "growing dissatisfaction of people at the local level" is more her concern at present rather than militancy, the Centre's take is also that Pakistan is trying to infiltrate and create disturbances at the local level to destabilize the situation on the ground in the Valley.
Even at the peak of militancy, polling has taken place in the Valley including the last panchayat elections, but holding this round of elections is turning out to be difficult for the PDP-BJP government in the state.
Government sources said with increased infiltration bids by Pakistan, security forces are on a greater offensive than before. As a result, very few cross-border infiltrators manage to enter into Kashmir as many of them are being gunned down by the forces, a fact which Pakistan refuses to acknowledge.
While deployment at the border has not been increased recently, government sources said, forces at the border have been given "more freedom to act on the ground" like never before and hence the increased offensive, which has also resulted in greater casualties among civilians living along the border, BSF personnel and
Army personnel.
In a written reply to a question by BJP MLA Rajesh Gupta in the state assembly, Mehbooba Mufti said on February 1 that 94 militants were killed and three arrested during infiltration bids by militants along the Indo-Pak border in the state during the last two years.
There were as many as 860 ceasefire violations (CFVs) along the LoC and another 120 along the IB in 2017, the highest-ever such tally in over 15 years. The number of ceasefire violations has already touched 241 across the LoC in the first 36 days of this year, claiming the lives of nine Indian soldiers, 3 BSF jawans and 8 civilians.
