NSG Commandos Dispatched to Srinagar Ahead of Amarnath Yatra

The move comes after increasing incidents of encounters where security forces have lost many soldiers.

Following intelligence reports of an attack on the Amarnath Yatra, likely to be carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Centre has reportedly dispatched a team of NSG commandos to Srinagar.

According to a report by India Today, the team, equipped with a range of latest weapons, is likely to be stationed at the Srinagar airport on standby.

Speaking to the channel, CRPF IG Ravideep Sahi had earlier said:

There is a higher level of threat perception to Amarnath Yatra this year. There are terror groups working alone as well as terror groups like Lashkar, Hizb and Jaish working as hybrid terror groups. Security forces are working hard to fend off any such terror attacks.

The NSG team’s deployment in Srinagar comes in light of the Home Ministry’s recent decision to include the commandos in counter-terror operations in the state.

Quoting ministry officials, PTI reported that a team of NSG has been stationed in the Kashmir Valley for quite sometime and is undergoing rigorous training in the outskirts of the city.

The teams will be kept at the disposal of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, which is the nodal agency for all anti-militancy operations, officials told PTI.

While the Union Home Ministry is upbeat about deploying the NSG in the valley, counter-terror experts feel that the black cats would be helpful in a situation where room-to-room intervention is required.

Such situations rarely come during a counter-militancy operation as it is virtually a do-or-die battle for the forces, mainly led by the state police and ably assisted by the Army and paramilitary forces, the experts said.

The move to deploy NSG commandos in Kashmir comes in the wake of increasing incidents of encounters where security forces have lost many soldiers during high-risk house intervention operations in densely populated localities.

The NSG commandos, when allowed, will get opportunities to test their skills and it will be a force-multiplier for anti-militancy forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, they said.

The commandos use sophisticated Heckler and Koch MP5 sub-machine guns, snipper rifles, through-the-wall radar and C-4 explosives to eliminate holed up terrorists without causing much damage to the structure.

The NSG was raised in 1984 in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star, which was carried out to flush out terrorists hiding in the Golden Temple in Punjab's Amritsar city.

The Black Cat commandos were deployed to tackle terrorists who carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, the January 2016 attack at the Pathankot air base as well as the terrorists who attacked the Akshardham temple in Gujarat.

There are around 7,500 personnel currently working with the NSG.

(With inputs from PTI.)