The Wire Staff 
Srinagar: At least 500 people from different parts of Kashmir were detained by J&K police today (February 4) in connection with the killing of a former army soldier in Kulgam district.
Sources said that most of the detainees are residents of south Kashmir’s Kulgam, Anantnag and Shopian districts who were asked to report to their respective police stations following the killing of Manzoor Ahmad Wagay, 39, a former army soldier who was gunned down by suspected militants in Behibagh village on Monday (February 3).
At many places in Kulgam, where the attack took place, security forces raided the houses of some suspects who were later whisked away for questioning. “Most of the detainees’ names figure in past First Information Reports,” sources said.
Some detainees have militancy cases dating back from 2003 but are presently living normal lives with their families, sources said, adding that few of them are relatives of militants based in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan, who are believed to behind the surge in targeted attacks on civilians and off-duty security personnel post 2019.
“Some detainees have been set free after questioning,” a senior police officer said.
Security agencies in Kashmir have routinely ordered suspects with a history of proven or unproven links to militancy to report at their respective police stations ahead of important national holidays like Republic Day and Independence Day or whenever there is a militant attack.
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But the scale of detentions in south Kashmir districts are the first of its kind in Kashmir which suggests that security agencies groping in the dark for the perpetrators of the targeted attack in Behibagh, in which Wagay’s wife Aaina Akhtar, 32 and her niece Saina Hameed, 13, were also injured.
A senior police official in south Kashmir said that the detainees are being questioned by counterintelligence and other units of J&K police. “Those who are not involved in any wrongdoing will be set free after counselling,” the officer said.
A police officer told The Indian Express that the detentions were aimed to send a message that such attacks involving the family members will not be tolerated. “They (militants) have crossed the red line this time by targeting the family members of the soldier,” the officer said.
Following the Behibagh attack, the National Conference (NC) and the Congress had raised questions over the Bhartiya Janta Party-led (BJP-led) Union government’s claim that normalcy had returned to Jammu and Kashmir following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019.
Referring to Union home minister Amit Shah’s claim a day earlier that J&K was normal, chief minister and NC vice-president Omar Abdullah said on Friday that “efforts to establish peace are ongoing”.
“Today also, reports come from some places when attacks take place. Normalcy has not been fully restored in J&K even today. It is a process. Efforts to establish peace are ongoing,” Abdullah said, referring to Shah’s statement.
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Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh congress committee president Tariq Hameed Karra said such killings were “unfortunate”. “Killing of security forces or civilian killings expose claims of the government of India,” he said.
The killing in Behibagh, the first incident of targeted attack on an unarmed civilian in the valley this year, had prompted candlelight protests on Monday in many parts of Baramulla, Bandipora, Anantnag and Shopian which were attended by locals and ex-servicemen.
On January 20, an army soldier was critically injured in a firefight in north Kashmir when security forces acting on specific inputs about a suspected militant hideout in Gujjarpati area of Zaloora came under fire from militants.
The victim, Sepoy Pangala Kartheek, later succumbed to injuries at a military hospital in Srinagar while the operation was called off.
Following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, new militant outfits like Peoples Anti-Fascist Front and The Resistance Front have burst on to the conflict scene who have launched a spate of attacks targeting armed forces, political workers and civilians in Jammu and Kashmir.
Security agencies believe that the two outfits comprising both local Kashmiri militant and foreigners are offshoots of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad and LeT terror outfits respectively and that the tactic was an attempt by Islamabad to disassociate itself from the ongoing terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.