 "How TRF has become the face of terror in Jammu and Kashmir")
The Baisaran Valley, in Pahalgam, Kashmir, experienced a dastardly Jihadi terror attack, in which 26 men were killed on April 22, 2025. As tourists moved around, at around 3 pm, a group of gunmen, reportedly two or three clad in army uniforms, appeared from the dense forests and opened indiscriminate fire, resulting in carnage.
The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the massacre earlier but later denied it. LeT’s Saifullah Kasuri alias Khalid, is the mastermind of this attack, while the TRF group was led by Asif Fauji. The last big terror strike in Jammu and Kashmir happened on June 9, 2024, the day of the swearing-in ceremony of PM Narendra Modi, in which around 10 Hindu pilgrims were killed as unidentified terrorists fired upon a bus ferrying pilgrims in the Reasi district of the Jammu region.
The TRF was formed after August 5, 2019, when the Indian Parliament scrapped Article 370, ceasing Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and dividing the state into two centrally administered Union Territories – Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Further, reports indicated that TRF is being controlled by three top LeT handlers of Pakistan: Sajad Jatt for South Kashmir, Khalid for Central Kashmir and Hanzala Adnan for North Kashmir.
By 2022, a majority of the armed fighters killed in gunfights in Kashmir were affiliated with the TRF, and its militants were increasingly using small arms such as pistols to carry out targeted killings, including those of retired security personnel and people accused of being informers.
The TRF also issued threats to valley-based journalists in its “traitor hit list”, following which in January 2023, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) declared it to be a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act – UAPA 1967.
The ministry made the announcement through a notification, mentioning that “the activities of TRF are detrimental for the national security and sovereignty of India”. MHA stated that the TRF is recruiting youth by using online media to further terrorist activities. The notification also states that the TRF has been involved in carrying out propaganda of terror activities, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration of terrorists, and smuggling of weapons and narcotics from Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir. Through the notification, the MHA also designated Sheikh Sajjad Gul, a ‘commander’ of TRF, a terrorist under the fourth schedule of UAPA.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsA few of the violent incidents related to TRF are as follows :
On October 20, 2024, TRF terrorists killed a doctor, identified as Shahnawaz and six labourers, including locals and non-locals, identified as Faheem Nazir, Kaleem, Mohammad Hanif, Shashi Abrol, Anil Shukla and Gurmeet Singh, and injured five people in the Sonamarg region in Ganderbal district.
On May 7, 2024, in an encounter, security forces killed two militants, including a top ‘commander’ of TRF, identified as Basit Dar, and his associate, Faheem Ahmed Baba, who was an over ground worker (OGW) in Redwani Payeen village in Kulgam district.
On March 30, 2022, two local terrorists of TRF were killed in an encounter with the police and CRPF in the Rainawari area of Srinagar.
On May 4, 2020, four people, including three Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troopers and a 14-year-old physically challenged boy, were killed when several terrorists attacked a group of CRPF personnel in Kupwara district’s Wangam village. The responsibility for the attack was later claimed by TRF.
On April 4, 2020, five SF personnel were killed in Kupwara district. Following a ceasefire violation that took place in the intervening night of April 1-2, a movement of infiltrating terrorists was first picked up in the Keran sector (opposite Shalabatho in Pakistan) on April 2. On April 4, two teams of the 4 Para were inducted into the area. A hand-to-hand combat and close fire occurred that left five Special Forces personnel killed in action. All five terrorists who had sneaked in from Pakistan were also killed. The TRF later claimed the killing of five Special Forces personnel.
Initially, TRF announced its arrival online via the encrypted chat platform Telegram on October 12, 2019, following a grenade attack in Srinagar’s Hari Singh High Street, in which seven civilians were injured. In its first message, posted on Telegram, taking responsibility of the grenade attack, TRF stated,
“Today’s grenade attack is the inception of indigenous resistance of Kashmir to flush out the occupational Indian regime out of IOJK. The attack was carried out by our cadres, and in future such attacks will follow.”
Five days later, on October 17, 2019, it posted a ‘warning’ for the Indian government.
“If India thinks of changing the direction of waters, then it will be doomsday (sic) for India, and blood will flow in every state of India.”
This social media account, according to the internet protocol address, was being operated from Islamabad, mostly from an iPhone device.
As reported on January 6, 2024, according to MHA notification, TRF has been recruiting youth through the online medium for the furtherance of terrorist activities, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration of terrorists and smuggling of weapons and narcotics from Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir.
Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), under immense international pressure to act against terrorism, created several outfits, including the TRF, to give terrorism in J&K an ‘indigenous’ face and to provide Pakistan’s deep state an alibi. It is pertinent to recall here that several such efforts have been repeated over the past three decades by Rawalpindi. Emulating earlier organisations like the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), TRF tried to employ a seemingly ‘secular’ discourse with the eye-wash of a ‘secular’ nomenclature in order to distance itself from the Islamist narrative of other Pakistan-based J&K/India oriented terrorist groups.
The name TRF was an attempt to ‘secularise’ the idea of jihad and present the Kashmir insurgency as a political cause rather than a religious war, as was manifested in the names of groups such as the LeT and the Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM).
However, in reality, this is nothing but a farce. Certainly, as reported on October 13, 2021, in an audio recording broadcast by CNN-News18, an unnamed female TRF operative instructed girls to wear Abaaya, as it is an Islamic outfit, and only go out when necessary. She also warned girls not to wear skirts and jeans, not to go out alone and not to be seen with men in public. TRF declared that if women did not fall in line with these commands, they would face the wrath of the group.
Further, in an audio message that was released on May 1, 2022, purportedly to wish listeners a happy Eid, TRF declared:
“This is our land, and we will go to any extent to protect it. There’s still time, leave our land, or we will be forced to step up action against you… The purpose of picking up arms is not victory or defeat. We want to show the world that you can cut off a Muslim’s head but never force him to bow before tyrants. We will never become slaves to cruel rulers and non-believers.”
Also, continuing with its communal hatred towards Hindus, on December 5, 2022, ‘Kashmiri Fight’, a blog linked to TRF, leaked a list including the names and details of 57 Kashmiri Pandit employees working under the Prime Minister’s Rehabilitation Package (PMRP) in Jammu and Kashmir. Also in the same month, TRF through the ‘Kashmir Fight’ blog warned that they would turn transit colonies of Kashmiri Pandits into ‘graveyards’ and also threatened contractors involved in the work.
The brutal and immoral attack on the innocent tourists in Pahalgam is an attempt to disrupt the security environment of Kashmir and also South Asia. The attack has induced public outrage in all parts of the country and once again has brought the Valley into the pivot of terrorism, as etched in the psyche of the Indian nation. The current political situation of the region is definitely tense, and the status quo is in complete jeopardy.
The writer is Research Fellow, Institute for Conflict Management, New Delhi. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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