Rajneeti: A Biography of Rajnath Singh - Rajneeti

At 11.15 a.m. on 15 February 2019, Rajnath Singh, the minister of home affairs, left for Srinagar to take stock of the situation on the ground. The home secretary, the director general of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and the additional director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and other senior officials accompanied him. Under Singh, the MHA had dealt with terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, the insurgency in the north-east and Naxal-infested area or the Red Corridor with an iron hand, and the results were more than visible. He was sanguine that the government would give the armed forces a free hand to respond in the manner they deemed fit as they had done on a few occasions in the recent past. But it was the circumstance of his visit that burdened his heart.

Convoys ferrying CRPF personnel were a common sight along the highway that connects Jammu and Srinagar. In the summers, the slew of vehicles would criss-cross the 295-kilometre-long segment of National Highway 44 every alternate day, but snowfall and landslides in the winter months disrupted the pattern and increased the time gap between the convoys. As a result, the number of stranded security forces personnel went up routinely. They would also be shifted between various transit camps like the one in Jammu that could accommodate 1000 personnel at the most. Incessant snowfall in late January 2019 had made it difficult for the convoy to move between Srinagar and Jammu for nearly a fortnight. From 4 February, fresh snowfall had blocked the route and, finally, ten days later, when the road became motorable again, the convoy strength had gone up to more than the usual. The seventy-eight-vehicle convoy carrying 2547 paramilitary personnel left Jammu at 3.30 a.m. on 14 February.

As the convoy hit the halfway mark at Qazigund, some of the vehicles dropped out but the number remained the same as a few mobile bunkers joined the convoy. Post-Qazigund the probability of a terrorist ambush increased drastically and the mobile bunkers were meant to address that contingency. At 2.40 p.m., the convoy left Qazigund and a few minutes after 3 p.m. it crossed Pulwama village. It seemed like a routine exercise for the troops on the move, most of them returning from leave. They found the sights familiar. With the road-opening party sanitizing the JammuSrinagar highway for improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and men on guard from any possible lobbing of grenades or firing by terrorists, everything seemed in order. Perhaps this is why a civilian vehicle approaching from the slip road did not seem out of place. Until 2003, the CRPF could stop vehicles entering the convoy path, but being sensitive towards local commuters, non-military vehicles were now allowed to use the highway during convoy movements.

The Maruti Eeco drove along with the convoy for a few metres. As the convoy neared Ladhoo Mode, a point where the curve and the gradient in the mountainous highway compelled vehicles to slow down, the driver moved up to the fifth bus in the convoy. He rammed the car laden with 80 kilograms of high-grade RDX (Research Department Explosivea type of high explosive) into the convoy and triggered an explosion. The impact was fierce. The forty-five-seater bus was blown to smithereens and two more were damaged. The explosion killed forty jawans in an instant and left five critically injured. The blast radius spread over 200 metres and lay littered with debris mixed with the remains of the slain troopers.

Details of the attack emerged as news filtered in. This was the worst terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir in three decades. Initial reports suggested that nearly 300 kg of RDX was used but investigations over the course of the next few days revealed that the fidayeen had used ammonium nitrate and other chemicals along with 80 kilograms of high-grade RDX sourced from Pakistan and smuggled into Kashmir over a period of more than six months in gas cylinders and coal booths.