Strict action by the Jammu and Kashmir Police has put the brakes on Pakistan’s external spy agency ISI’s method of wooing Kashmiri boys into terror ranks by taking them to the neighbouring country using passport and later infiltrating them into the valley along with mercenaries, officials said on Sunday.
Some of the Kashmiri youths who visited Pakistan through legal channels to meet their relatives were also targeted and even given a crash course of two weeks on handling of explosives and firing from a close range.
However, after the Jammu and Kashmir Police implemented a new regime with additional checks and balances, there has been no report of anyone going to Pakistan on a valid travel document for terrorist training, the officials said. Under the new regime, police officials entrusted with the process of background verification for passports have been asked to check if an individual was involved in any law and order incident like stone pelting.
Be it the “savari” concept wherein unsuspecting passengers of the Samjhuta Express were used by the ISI to pump in money for terror groups as well as fake Indian currency notes to weaken the country’s economy, or the supply of narcotics, arms and ammunition through trade across the Line of Control (LoC), the Pakistani agency has been trying every trick in the book to keep the terrorism pot boiling in India, the officials said.
Terror groups in Pakistan did not even spare those youths who had gone to Pakistan for higher studies, prompting the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All Indian Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to announce in April last year that students having Pakistani degrees would not be eligible for higher studies or employment in India.