Centre bans Lashkar arm The Resistance Front

Ministry of Home Affairs (Photo: ANI)

The Ministry of Home Affairs has banned Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba’s offshoot – The Resistance Front – under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967.

The proxy outfit came into existence in 2019 and has been involved in carrying out attacks on security forces, civilians, including Kashmiri Pandits and migrant workers, in the Valley.

“The Resistance Front is recruiting youth through online medium for furtherance of terrorist activities and has been involved in carrying out propaganda on terror activities, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration of terrorists and smuggling of weapons and narcotics from Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir,” said a notification issued by the MHA.

The home ministry also said that a large number of cases have been registered against the members of TRF, relating to planning of killings of security personnel and innocent civilians of Jammu and Kashmir.

“The Resistance Front is involved in psychological operations on social media platforms for inciting people of Jammu and Kashmir to join terrorist outfits against Indian state,” said the home ministry.

In December 2022, the outfit had issued threats to 56 Kashmiri Pandit employees under the Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package (PMRP).

The ministry has also designated TRF’s commander Sheikh Sajjad Gul as a terrorist under the fourth schedule of UAPA Act, 1967.

According to police, Gul also runs a blog ‘Kashmir Fight’, which vilified eminent Kashmiri journalist Shujat Bukhari before his assassination on June 14, 2018 in Srinagar.

Through this blog, life threats were issued to other Kashmiri journalists and social activists also.

TRF came to spotlight post abrogation of Article 370 as it claimed responsibility of a grenade attack at Hari Singh High Street in Srinagar on October 12, 2019. In this attack, eight people including a woman were injured.

Earlier in 2021, the outfit had also claimed responsibility for the killing of prominent pharmacist Makhan Lal Bindroo in Srinagar.

The group was banned a day after MHA declared Aijaz Ahmad Ahanger, one of the chief recruiters of the Islamic State in Jammu and Kashmir, an “individual terrorist” under UAPA.

Ahanger, alias Abu Usman Al-Kashmiri, is currently based in Afghanistan. He has been a wanted terrorist in Jammu and Kashmir for more than two decades.

“Ahanger has started planning terror-related strategies by building coordination channels between various terrorist organisations,” the home ministry said on January 4.