India to deploy ‘Black Cat’ commandos in Occupied Kashmir

NEW DELHI: Indian government is all set to deploy ‘Black Cat’ commandos of the elite counter-terror force in Occupied Kashmir to help security forces in dealing with encounters and hostage-like situations, reports said here.

According to Economic Times, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs is examining a proposal to deploy a contingent of the National Security Guard (NSG) commandos in the held-Kashmir 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,” the reported quoted a senior official privy to the matter as saying.

Director General of Police, Jammu and Kashmir, S P Vaid had also said recently that he has been working on the proposal. “Hope it will be successful,” he had said.

This is not for the first time that the NSG commandos, popularly know 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 ‘Black Cat’ commandos were deployed to tackle the terrorists who carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, January 2016 terror attack at the Pathankot air base as well as eliminating the terrorists who attacked the Akshardham tem