During an attack by terrorists in Shopian, a policeman’s rifle was snatched from him before he got killed. All this was done by the terrorists under the disguise of burqas. Officials have been reported saying that this trend has been continuing of late, giving the security forces a difficult time.

Economic Times has reported that at least 12 such incidents have occurred in the last one year. For search operations, security forces are considering deploying women troops on standby. An officer has been quoted as saying, “It has often been noticed during CASOs that a lot of locals, with women in large numbers at the front, began to run around in order to give cover to the fleeing ultras. This creates confusion and many a times, terrorists manage to escape.”

Two Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists, Sameer Wani and Firdaus Ahmed, earlier this year around Republic Day, wore burqas to flee from the security forces. Due to a confusion, two women including Wani’s sister was injured during an intense encounter operation. The two terrorists were later gunned down.

A similar incident happened in February. In July 2017, three terrorists wearing burqa attempted robbing a bank in Anantnag. This became the first major incident.

Two more instances saw terrorists throwing grenades while wearing burqas. In one incident, the terrorist blew himself up while attempting to escape after throwing a grenade at the police station in Tral. Earlier this year in January, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) issued a fatwa against women who didn’t wear ‘complete purdah’.