A few points to ponder about what Satyapal Malik said about Pulwama. Let us suppose for argument sake that the aircraft were provided. It would have landed where? Pulwama? No. In Srinagar, from where troops would have to go in convoys all over, including Pulwama. As a senior journalist with vast experience of insurgency, a man I look up to, points out: convoys carrying security personnel are always active across Kashmir. If it were not for Pulwama, some other convoy would have been attacked.

A few thoughts on the third anniversary of the revocation of #Article370 in Kashmir: militancy is at its lowest ebb. Every house, every shop in South Kashmir is on excel sheet of SFs. Every militant movement is tracked, every OGW is known. Who he meets, what he does is tracked But isolated terror attacks cannot be prevented all time. For example, two days ago, SFs in Pulwama were tracking new OGWs who they thought might get active. One of them did last evening, causing one death of a labourer by hand-grenade attack

The National Investigation Agency has filed a chargesheet in the June 2021 Darbhanga railway station blast, unearthing a Lashkar conspiracy to create major unrest in India. A thread: The NIA investigation has revealed that the IED booked as a parcel in the train was to go off in the night, causing massive fire in the train, resulting in heavy loss to life. But somehow the trigger failed and it finally blew off at the station where it was controlled

A thread on some remarkable books I got to read in 2021: Isabel Wilkerson’s brilliant work on the mass migration of African Americans out of the US south. Benjamin Labatut’s “gripping meditation on knowledge and hubris”

What really happened in the #Manipur ambush? (thread)
The attack took place between Behiang Sialsi and S. Sekhen village in Churachandpur district at around 10.30 a.m. Jubilee Moi, the 50-year-old lady chief of Behiang rushed to the spot when no one else was willing to. She carried the wounded in two trips to PHC Behiang in her own vehicle.

Just to say that last 48 years have been HELL and we have survived because of few friends (more about them later), to whom I remain eternally grateful. Came online to acknowledge the passing away of Jagmohan ji, without whom the Kashmiri Pandits would have perished + + I will always remember him at the IIC library, back towards the glass window, a light shawl to protect from cold draught. Spotting me and coming out to have tea and cucumber sandwiches

Indian security agencies need to constantly keep up with new tactics Pakistani Army uses to send terrorists and weapons. After tunnels on the international border in Jammu, Pakistan is now using drones to drop weapons that can fly over the fence right up to the national highway Last night in Samba in Jammu sector, a joint team of Anantnag and Samba Police captured Zahoor Ahmed Rather, the deputy chief of a Lashkar front, who had come to Samba to collect weapons dropped from one such drone. Zahoor had surrendered earlier and became active again

Had a few thoughts about the Khalistan sentiment in Punjab that we hear of every now and then. In 1990 the situation was so bad that night buses from Jammu to Delhi could not ply due to fear of getting ambushed in Punjab by terrorists (1/n) Later, as a student in Punjab university, I travelled across the state with friends, many of them comrades, older to me, who taught me so many things I was not even aware of. Their english faltering but never their grasp, all my political education came from there (2/n)

I quit TV fifteen years ago. Around that time, I did a project for CSDS — a graphic novel of sorts on my time in one of the TV news channels I worked with.

Today, I took it out:

When first videos surfaced, of rioters with firearms and petrol bombs on Tahir Hussain's terrace, you simply said he was not present there. When his presence there became certain, you said: What do you want him to do, become another Ehsan Jafri! + + You failed to even notice selective reporting from Hussain's lane, how the Hindu business (burn down by rioters) absolutely next to his office-cum-residence was ignored. Ignored because when some people left their newsrooms, they had already made up their mind on what to show +

The poison, the sudden breakdown of an increasingly cautious trust, and the breach of an ordinary man’s confidence in a policeman’s uniform — my dispatch from Northeast Delhi
openthemagazine.com/cover-story/ha… Here’s a thread on people mentioned in my dispatch. This is the torched Captain Katora restaurant run by Kamal Sharma in Bhajanpura.

This dispatch from Brijpuri, NE Delhi. At 4 pm on Feb 25, a huge mob (eyewitnesses say at least a 1,000) began attack on the Hindu pocket. First target: Arun Public School, run by former Congress MLA Bhishm Sharma. The attack ran for 3 hours. The lone watchman guarding the school ran away. The mob took away whatever they could, and took time to destroy everything (including urinals and fans)

Noore Khan, a fruit-seller from Chand Bagh watched helplessly as a mob burnt down his shop cum home on Feb 24. He alleges Delhi Police was accompanying the Hindu mob. This is what is left of his shop.

I spent the entire day in Northeast Delhi. Will file a dispatch later. But in the worst-affected Chand Bagh area, the Hindu residents of Moonga Nagar have levelled serious allegations against @AamAadmiParty Corporator Mohammed Tahir Hussain + + This is a video shared by a local resident. The house on the left belongs to Hussain. One can see mob on its rooftop throwing stones and petrol bombs all over

I do not want to undermine peaceful anti-CAA/NRC protests. But I do want you to spare a thought on what effect “Azadi” slogans have on some of us. Some are rejoicing that these are now reverberating from Kashmir to cities across India (Thread) In Kashmir in 1990, the “Azadi” slogan became a weapon for the brutalisation of minority Hindus. On the night of January 19, coupled with other slogans, it scared a mother so much that she stuffed Parle-G biscuits in her crying toddler’s mouth, lest it attracted rioters outside

The clown strikes again. He has blocked me, so I am going to counter his assembly-line garbage in the following thread without tagging him: theprint.in/opinion/why-ka… First the clown's BS on Amarnath Yatra. Contrary to what he imagines, it has been suspended several times in the past as well, including in the year 2000 when Islamists killed 30 Hindu pilgrims. Here's a BBC report news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asi…

Sharing with you some old news clippings/ conversations on Kashmir: #Thread TOI, Sept 1992. “Gandhian” JKLF executes 2 armymen RK Ghai and KR Kannan

Apropos to some views suggesting "India story" is over in Kashmir, a thread explaining how things work in Kashmir: 1. In 30 years, Kashmiris have become experts on what to say in front of whom. So same person will say three different things in front of a foreign journalist, Indian journalist, and a local journalist. And to people close to him (s)he will say very different things.

Two days ago, a senior police officer received a message from one of the separatist leaders currently under detention in #Kashmir. “I want to talk to you,” the message read. #Thread The police officer arranged a call. After dua-salaam, the officer asked: “Do you want to come out?” The separatist said: No, no. He said he will have no face to show to his supporters. He wanted to tell the officer that he should be released only in chillai’e kalaan, harsh winter

It is amazing how a set of Delhi journalists are undermining the work of some of their fellow journalists in Kashmir, calling them “agency-enabled”, hiding their own incompetence and blindspots. I have a small Maruti car here with local number, driven by Open’s deputy photo editor, @ashishsphotos. Sometimes we hire a cab owned by an old man whom we call “chacha”.

Second dispatch today: I went to Pulwama in South Kashmir today, which was almost a liberated zone post Burhan Wani’s death. In Pampore, I did not see a single security person. Many shops are open, people are busy with Eid shopping. In Kakpora, Pulwama, met a group of people coming out of a mosque. They were very angry and said that India had cheated them. They said they were suffering and that now outsiders will come and take everything away.