The dramatic arrest of Devinder Singh, Deputy Superintendent in the Jammu and Kashmir police, along with Islamist militants raises new questions about the bleak relations between state actors and terrorism.
Critical questions relating to the beating interplay that realpolitik and the larger state have with imstruments of terrorism and the consequent compromises that counter-terrorism agencies have to make once again came forcefully into public discourse in the first and second weeks of January. The Central to this development is the dramatic arrest of Devinder Singh, a Deputy Superintendent of Jammu and Kashmir police, on January 11 from the Srinagar-Jammu highway while he was allegedly carrying Naveed Baby and Altaf, two Islamist Jehadi terrorist reportedly belonging to the Hizbul-Mujahiden and Lashkar-e-taiba groups respectively and an overground operative in his private car, and the course the investigation into this arrest has taken. In the process, some old questions in the larger issues of the “military-militant” complex have been revived and new questions have arisen.
The questions relating to the case are essentially linked to Devinder Singh’s three decade long career as a police officer, who is certainly chequered. In strict official terms, he was only a Deputy superintendent of police-level officer, tipped to be promoted as superintendent of police soon, but the reach and influence that he had within the police and administrative system was apparently much greater than what the formal positions he had carried.