#indian army jammu kashmir

[kimskashmir]

Mini-UAV inadvertently drifts into PoK, Indian Army seeks its return

JAMMU — A mini-unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) of the Indian Army inadvertently drifted into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district, officials said. The UAV, which was on a test training sortie in the hinterland in Bhimber Gali area, developed some snag and lost control with the operator, thereby drifting into other side of the LoC,…

[banglakhobor]

ফের রক্তাক্ত উপত্যকা, কাশ্মীরে এনকাউন্টারে শহিদ ৩ জওয়ান; জঙ্গিদের খোঁজে চলছে তল্লাশি !

কুলগাম : ফের রক্তাক্ত উপত্যকা ! জঙ্গিদের সঙ্গে গুলির লড়াইয়ে শহিদ তিন সেনা জওয়ান। জম্মু ও কাশ্মীরের কুলগাম জেলার ঘটনা। খবর ভারতীয় সেনা সূত্রের। স্থানীয় হালান জঙ্গল এলাকায় জঙ্গিরা জমায়েত করেছে। এই খবর পেয়ে যৌথভাবে তল্লাশি অভিযান শুরু করে ভারতীয় সেনা ও পুলিশ। শুক্রবার সন্ধে নাগাদ তল্লাশি অভিযান চলাকালীন এনকাউন্টার শুরু হয়ে যায় উভয়পক্ষের। নাগাড়ে গোলাগুলি শুরু করে জঙ্গিরা। পাল্টা জবাব দেয় বাহিনী।…

[lt-nawag-kapadia]

Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry — Nawang kapadia

The Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JKLI) is one of the most decorated infantry units in the Indian Army. It was established in the year 1947, shortly after the partition of India and Pakistan. The unit has been involved in many operations throughout its history and has earned numerous awards for its bravery. To read more:- https://medium.com/@nawangkapadia/jammu-and-kashmir-light-infantry-nawang-kapadia-6a23d3163e49

[boc-news]

শহিদ হল ভারতীয় সেনার অ্যাসল্ট কুকুর জুম

প্রয়াত ভারতীয় সেনার (Indian Army) অ্যাসল্ট কুকুর জুম। বীরত্বের নতুন নজির তৈরি করে শহিদ হল সে। রবিবার গভীর রাতে জম্মু ও কাশ্মীরের (Jammu And Kashmir) অনন্তনাগ জেলায় এক জঙ্গি বিরোধী অভিযানে দুটি জঙ্গির সাথে লড়াইয়ে গুরুতর আহত হয় সারমেয়টি। তারপরই আশঙ্কাজনক অবস্থায় অ্যাডভান্স ফিল্ড পশু হাসপাতালে (Advance Field Veterinary Hospital) ভর্তি করা হয়েছিল। ওই হাসপাতালে চিকিৎসা চলছিল তার। সেখানে জুমের…

[breaking-news-portal]

J&K: 3 JeM Terrorists Gunned Down In Twin Operations By Security Forces In Kulgam

J&K: 3 JeM Terrorists Gunned Down In Twin Operations By Security Forces In Kulgam

New Delhi: Three terrorists from Jaish e Mohammed outfit were gunned down by security forces in Jammu Kashmir’s Kulgam district in a twin operation in last 24 hours, reported news agency ANI. Among the the three terrorists killed, one belonged to Pakistan, the report added. The Jammu and Kashmir police received an intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in Kulgam’s Ahwatoo…

[metamatar]

How do I argue with someone who says integration (Indians moving to Kashmir Valley) is good?

ask them if its fair that kashmiris homes get destroyed and seized by the indian army and then indians from the mainland get to buy the land for cheap. if their answer is yes they are beyond your or my reach. this moving of indians to the valley is not some idealised "natural" migration happening in the absence of the ideological motives of hindutva forces that have long aimed to resettle kashmir to make it more hindu.

(frontline's paywall can be broken using reader mode on your browser)

[timetravellingkitty]

Going Anonymous for security reasons here. So, regarding Kashmir: I am sick and tired of how people on Tumblr (or rather Hindublr tags) really believe that Kashmir is healing when it is still the most armed state in the world. I am horrified of how these people glorifying Army personels, who are no more than paid abusers and rapists and this is coming from a person whose family legacy is that of 'serving in the Army' I am not Kashmiri (And I cannot say I have faced the same shit they faced and I commend their resilience and their spirit) but I've had the chance to visit the 'non tourist' spots and let me tell you, it is fucked up. Even from the perspective of a person who is very privileged in this situation. I've literally seen some of these 'brave sons of India' beat up a seven year old boy just because he was 'being a hindrance in the road' One of my dad's colleague just got a 'warning' even after being a convicted assaulter after he raped two Kashmiri women (And this was back in 2013) and I came to know about this through Twitter out of all things. I remember going through those small towns in Kashmir and it being fucking empty and everything being closed up because they were afraid of the people who were stationed to 'protect' them. I am so sorry for venting out on your inbox like this but I've seen some of these blogs defend the Militarisation in Kashmir and it is awful and inhumane of how these people could even defend that out of all things. And to burst their bubble of delusion, it has gotten worse after the bill was passed. So many Kashmiri Muslims are getting wrongfully evicted out of their homes to 'house' the Pandits (but doing nothing when they were living as refugees and in destitution in Jammu) and the internet ban during the pandemic and people think Kashmir is healing?

And most of all, I wanted to thank you for posting the masterlist about Kashmir. It is very informative and has helped me learn and unlearn a lot of Kashmiri history.

This isn't even the first time the Army has done something like this. The IPKF was responsible for the massacres and rapes of multiple Tamil civilians it's insane how dedicated we are to glorifying the Indian military

[kimskashmir]

Army Goodwill School Gurez Bandipora celebrated 25th Anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas

GUREZ, BANDIPORA (KIMS) — On July 26th, the Army Goodwill School in Gurez Valley, Bandipora District, celebrated Kargil Vijay Diwas to honor the 25th anniversary of the Kargil War victory. The event brought together Indian Army personnel, veterans, students, and local residents in a heartfelt tribute to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives in 1999. The program featured inspiring speeches from…

[nohkalikai]

full text:

Activist calls for border march in Ladakh to mark land lost to China

The march would be taken out in the north and south banks of Pangong Tso lake, Demchok, Chushul among others along the Line of Actual Control with China; two dates are shortlisted — March 27 and April 7

Around 10,000 people from Ladakh will march to the border along China this month to showcase how much land has been lost to the neighbouring country, climate activist and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk said on Tuesday.

Mr. Wangchuk has been protesting in open in sub-zero temperature in Leh, surviving only on salt and water for the past 14 days, to demand constitutional safeguards for the Union Territory.

“We know from the shepherds that they are not allowed [anymore] to go to the places that they always used to go. In particular areas, they are stopped kilometres before where they used to go earlier. We will go and show whether land has been lost or not,” Mr. Wangchuk said.

The march would be taken out in Finger area (north and south bank of Pangong Tso), Demchok, Chushul among others along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

He said two dates have been shortlisted for the march — March 27 and April 7.

“The march will also highlight the areas, prime pasture lands, that are being turned into solar parks. On one hand, nomads are losing their land to corporates who are coming to set up their plants, maybe mining in future. Nomads will lose 150,000 sq km of prime pasture land, on the other hand they are losing pasture land to China which is encroaching from the north, the Chinese have captured huge chunks of land in the last few years,” he said.

After the June 15, 2020 incident in Galwan where 20 Indian soldiers were killed in violent clashes with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, several rounds of talks between the two armies have taken place leading to disengagement and creation of buffer zones or no-go areas. These areas in eastern Ladakh were regularly patrolled before April 2020 when China started amassing troops close to the LAC. At least 26 patrolling points out of total 65 PPs in Eastern Ladakh are not being patrolled due to the border dispute.

At the centre of Mr. Wangchuk’s protest that has received huge support from the locals is the failure of talks between Ladakh civil society leaders and Union Home Minister Amit Shah on March 4.

The members of Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) representing the Buddhist majority and Shia Muslim dominated regions respectively in Ladakh, are jointly protesting for Statehood for Ladakh, inclusion of Ladakh in the sixth schedule of the constitution thus giving it a tribal status, job reservation for locals and a parliamentary seat each for Leh and Kargil.

Though ministry officials had in previous rounds of meetings agreed to examine how the provisions of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution can be implemented in Ladakh’s context, the meeting with Mr. Shah “did not result in any positive outcome”.

“Government has been declining to keep their promise on Sixth Schedule. The Home Minister said we cannot give this but we will give you some constitutional safeguard,” Mr. Wangchuk said adding that he wants to awaken the people of India to this “breach of trust”.

“People are disillusioned, disenchanted and angry. There is no chance BJP will win a seat here in the upcoming elections. But this is not only for Ladakh, am trying to awaken the nation, if this is how election promises are honoured, then elections are a joke. Why did we vote this party to power twice?” he said. Ladakh’s only parliamentary seat was won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and 2019.

After the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was revoked by the Parliament on August 5, 2019, Ladakh was turned into a Union Territory without any legislative assembly.

[mariacallous]

Five years since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its autonomous status, the central government’s iron-fisted approach to the region has left it more vulnerable to regional and geopolitical threats.

While Kashmir Valley, which has withstood the brunt of armed insurgency since 1989, continues to simmer with militancy-related violence, the theater of terrorism has now extended into the otherwise peaceful province of Jammu. Since 2019, at least 262 soldiers and 171 civilians have died in more than 690 incidents, including the February 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack. The unsustainable and disproportionate loss of lives underscores the risks to both regional stability and India’s national security.

In 2019, the Modi government revoked Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which granted the state of Jammu and Kashmir its special status, annihilating the contested region’s symbolic autonomy. Concurrently, the central government also imposed an indefinite curfew in the region and used internet shutdowns and arrests to control and suppress the local population. The result was a transformed landscape. Already scarred by militarization, Kashmir became enmeshed in barbed wire.

This undemocratic exercise, though later stamped and endorsed by India’s Supreme Court, has since spurred further legal changes. For example, the local population no longer has access to exclusive protections that previously allowed only permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir to apply for government jobs and buy property in the state.

In March 2020, the government repealed 12 and amended 14 land-related laws, introducing a clause that paved the way for a development authority to confiscate land and another that allowed high-ranking army officials to declare a local area as strategically important.

Local residents are appalled at the ease with which government agencies can now seize both residential and agricultural lands in the name of development and security—enabling mass evictions and the bulldozing of houses that are disproportionately affecting Muslim communities and small landowners.

Meanwhile, the ecological fallout from introducing massive road and railway networks, coupled with the addition of mega hydroelectricity projects, is polluting riverbeds and causing villages to sink. Since 2019, there has been a lack of local representation which could act as a buffer against massive development projects, most of which now fall under New Delhi’s governance. Meanwhile, the region’s unemployment rate, as of 2023, remains high at above 18 percent, as compared to the national average of 8 percent.

Over the last few years, the Modi government has also squashed dissent in the region by redirecting the military to maintain surveillance and control of the civilian population. According to the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, over 2,700 people were arrested in the region between 2020 and 2023 under India’s contentious Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Public Safety Act. Those arrested include journalists like Fahad Shah and Sajad Gul, human rights defenders like Khurram Pervez, and prominent lawyers like Mian Qayoom and Nazir Ronga.

Modi’s repressive policies have deepened the trust deficit between Kashmiris and the Indian government. The top-down administration has further sidelined local bureaucrats and police officers, further widening the gap between the central government and local ground realities.

All of this has not only pushed the local population into distress, but also jeopardized India’s already fragile relations with its two nuclear neighbors, Pakistan and China.

The Kashmir conflict, rooted in the 1947 partition of India, has led to three major wars and several military skirmishes between India, Pakistan, and China. And though the region has always been contentious—India controls more than half of the total land, while Pakistan controls 30 percent, and China holds the remaining 15 percent in the northeast region near Ladakh—Modi’s aggressive handling has further provoked its neighbors.

Following the revocation of Article 370, the region was split into two separate union territories—Jammu and Kashmir forming one and Ladakh forming another, with both falling under the central government’s control.

This redrawing of the region’s internal borders, which signaled New Delhi’s assertions of reclaiming the Chinese-occupied territory near Ladakh—as well as India’s increasing tilt towards the United States—resulted in a deadly clash between India and China in 2020 and another one in 2022. Despite diplomatic efforts to resolve tensions over the disputed Himalayan border, New Delhi has accused Beijing of carrying out “inch by inch” land grabs in Ladakh since 2020.

Meanwhile, Pakistan-administered Kashmir has been rocked by mass protests of its own this year, owing to the country’s political and economic crisis, exacerbated in part by the abrogation of Article 370. Those living in Pakistan-administered Kashmir fear that Pakistan may similarly try to dilute the autonomy of the region.

With refugees flooding in from Afghanistan on its west amidst Imran Khan’s standoff with the Pakistani Army, Islamabad has been on edge and looking for diversionary tactics. The deepening of Pakistani-Chinese relations, including military ties, has contributed to a volatile mix.

But Kashmir’s vulnerability has worsened partly because of India’s own tactical blunders, too. The last decade witnessed a spurt in home-grown militancy, but since 2019 the landscape has been dominated by well-trained militants from across the Pakistani border who have access to sophisticated weapons and technology.

Indian security forces, including paramilitaries and the local police, have turned a blind eye to these emerging threats, especially in the twin districts of Rajouri and Poonch along the border with Pakistan. It is in this area that the impact of terror attacks has been most felt.

The region is home to the nomadic Gujjar-Bakerwal communities and the ethnolinguistic Paharis. These groups are parts of divided families straddling the India-Pakistan border, and this shared cultural linkage between the Indian and Pakistani sides has been weaponized in the past by intelligence networks of both countries.

The Indian armed forces have historically relied on the Gujjar-Bakerwal communities for intelligence gathering in part because of their nomadic lives and deep knowledge of the region’s topography. However, since 2019, the evictions of nomads from forest lands, following the amendment of several land-related laws, as well as affirmative actions for Paharis, a rival ethnic group, have led to the disenchantment of the Gujjar-Bakerwals—and an eventual loss of traditional intelligence assets for India.

Another blunder has been the redeployment of troops from Jammu to the border with China in the northeast, following China’s incursions in Ladakh’s Galwan Valley in 2020. This has left Jammu dangerously exposed to militants who have been infiltrating the region from across the line of control on the western side and carrying out their operations with a fair degree of success.

In 2024 alone, Jammu has witnessed numerous attacks which have resulted in the deaths of 16 soldiers and 12 civilians. In June, for example, the region experienced one of its deadliest attacks when militants opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing nine and injuring over 30.

Kashmir’s internal politics has the potential to spill over and push the region into disaster. While India has made some significant strides in international diplomacy under Modi, it tends to neglect the neighborhood where the risks to India’s national security remain the highest. Its diplomatic engagement with China comes in fits and starts but diplomacy with Pakistan remains nonexistent, despite the resumption of a ceasefire in 2021. And while India considers the removal of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status an internal matter, Pakistan sees it as a provocation. All in all, there is a dangerous lack of engagement between the two nuclear rivals in South Asia.

In theory, the ongoing regional elections in Jammu and Kashmir provide a glimmer of opportunity for the people to choose their own local government for the first time in a decade. However, irrespective of who wins the elections, the local leaders will lack the power to enact meaningful change, given that the region remains under the control of New Delhi following its demotion from a state to two union territories.

For instance, Ladakh does not have a legislative assembly, and while Jammu and Kashmir have an elected assembly, the real powers are vested in the hands of a governor, who was appointed to lead the region by the Modi-led central government. As recently as July, the Indian government ruled to further expand the governor’s oversight powers, delivering a blow to local politicians and voters.

Much more needs to be done to change the status quo. Though it remains unlikely, New Delhi must consider meaningful solutions that could assuage some of the political wounds inflicted by the complete erosion of Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy, including, for example, the restoration of statehood to the region. In order to win back the trust of Kashmiris, the Indian government must reinstate civil liberties and deliver on its promise to provide economic development and jobs.

To improve the region’s safety, Indian agencies must acknowledge their security lapses and repair their broken intelligence networks. And while the Indian security forces must not lower their guard against terrorist activities, terrorism should not be proffered as an excuse when it comes to the normalization of relations in the neighborhood.

Neither Pakistan, nor India can afford the war which is looming over their heads. Diplomatic negotiations, including over Kashmir, must begin with a sense of urgency.

[beguines]

International law prohibits occupying powers to transfer their own population into territories or change their demographic makeup as a means to avoid ethnic cleansing. The facilitation of Indian settlers into Kashmir will alter the demographic makeup of the state, thereby ending the possibility of a just solution in the region. In the interim, the Indian government will exercise delimitation—or change electoral boundaries—to grant more electoral sway to existing and future Hindu-majority districts in Kashmir. This "settler implantation and demographic gerrymandering" is intended to counter the Muslim majority. In this way, decisions made by any legislative body will be deemed "democratic" and "representative" of the people of Kashmir.

The Indian government also passed another law, the "Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization (Adaptation of Central Laws) Third Order, 2020" pertaining to the use of land. As an occupying power, the Indian army has already swallowed vast tracts of land for its barracks and bases spread all across Kashmir. The details of these installations and the scale of these bases remain obscure, with the military using "national security" as a means of subterfuge. By 2020 the Indian army held around 53,353 hectares in Kashmir with 243 hectares of additional forest land approved for use by the Indian forces between September 18, 2019 and October 21, 2019 alone. The new law, passed in October 2020, gave every Indian citizen the right to buy land in Kashmir. The region was officially up for sale.

The state also repealed land reform acts from the 1950s that had placed restrictions on the amount of land that any individual could hold, meaning that Indians could now purchase unlimited amounts of land. Meanwhile the right-to-return of those state-subjects "displaced by the incomplete and unending partition of Kashmir" were immediately extinguished with the application of the Central Enemy Properties Act 1968. A few months later, another law was passed that allowed the Indian army to "mark any property or area in Jammu and Kashmir as 'strategic' and take it over without any local government permissions and ignoring civilian objections." For example, in January 2022, the army grabbed over 50.5 hectares of land in the tourist areas of Gulmarg and Sonmarg under this dispensation, stating that the land would be used for "operational and training requirements" of the armed forces. In this way, the Indian government had paved the way for the army and corporations to take control of the state.

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

[boc-news]

জঙ্গিদের সাথে লড়ায়ে গুলিবিদ্ধ সেনা সারমেয় ‘জুম’, নিহত ২ লস্কর জঙ্গি

জঙ্গিদের সাথে লড়ায়ে গুলিবিদ্ধ সেনা সারমেয় ‘জুম’, নিহত ২ লস্কর জঙ্গি

দেশের নাগরিকদের সুরক্ষা প্রদান করতে সেনা জওয়ানরা সীমান্তে দিন রাত নিরাপত্তা দিচ্ছেন। সেনা জাওয়ানদের সাথে তালে তাল মিলিয়ে কাজ করে চলেছে সেনাবাহিনীর কুকুর (Army Dog)। বীরত্বের নতুন নজির তৈরি করল সেনাবাহিনীর কুকুর। প্রাণের তোয়াক্কা না করে গুলিবিদ্ধ হয়েও লড়াই করে গেল ভারতীয় সেনার (Indian Army) অ্যাসল্ট ডগ জুম। রবিবার গভীর রাতে জম্মু ও কাশ্মীরের (Jammu And Kashmir) অনন্তনাগ জেলায় জঙ্গি বিরোধী অভিযান…