The Ministry of Home Affairs is examining a proposal to deploy a contingent of the National Security Guard (NSG) commandos in the Kashmir Valley so that they can join the Indian Army, the CRPF and the state police when a high-risk militancy related incident takes place.
“We are planning to deploy the NSG in Kashmir. They are trained to deal with terrorists and hostage-like situations. We are mulling over it,” an official said.
Director General of Police, Jammu and Kashmir, S P Vaid had also said recently that he has been working on the proposal. “Hope I will be successful,” he had said. This is not for the first time that the NSG commandos, popularly known as ‘Black Cat’, would be deployed in Jammu and Kashmir. The commandos of the elite force have been deployed in the Valley in the past too. Their special skills of carrying out house intervention and hostage rescue can act as “clincher” during a terror siege, the official said.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, during a recent NSG event in Telangana, had said the government is planning as to how the force’s role could be “enlarged” vis-a-vis the new security challenges faced by the country, as these commandos can play a “big role” in operations such as those where terrorists take a human as shield and enter civilian premises.
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, would get opportunities to test their skills and it will be a force-multiplier for anti-militancy forces deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, another official said. Normally, a small NSG team comprises five commandos led by a non-commissioned officer along with bomb experts and crack marksman. The commandos use sophisticated Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine guns, sniper rifles, through-the-wall radar and C-4 explosives to eliminate holed up terrorists without causing much damage to the structure.
