Village Defence Guards Village Defence Committees | |
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Abbreviation | VDGs |
Agency overview | |
Formed | 1996 |
Jurisdictional structure | |
Operations jurisdiction | Jammu and Kashmir, India |
Governing body | Jammu and Kashmir Police |
General nature | |
Operational structure | |
Elected officer responsible | |
Agency executive | |
Parent agency | Government of Jammu & Kashmir |
Districts | |
Notables | |
Significant Village Defence |
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Village Defence Guards (VDGs) formerly known as Village Defence Committees is a civilian militia first established in the mid-1990s in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir for the self-defence of locals, especially Hindus and vulnerable Muslims, in remote hilly villages against militancy. It consist of villagers as well as police officers. [2]
VDGs are specifically trained to confront the terrorists who regularly infiltrate from Pakistan. This militia has effectively supplied crucial information to the police, thwarting potential acts of mayhem by these terrorists.
As recently as 2019, the Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) set up new VDCs in Kishtwar district, [2] which has over 3,251 VDC members out of which 800 are armed. [2] In Jammu and Kashmir, there were 4,125 VDCs as of December 2019. [3] The Indian Army conducts training camps for VDCs consisting of weapons training and intelligence gathering basics. On 15 September 2019, the Army trained VDCs in Doda sector. [4] They were mainly set up to protect Hindus and Muslims. [5] [6] Following the killing of a Kashmiri-Hindu Sarpanch in June 2020, former Director General (DGP) of Jammu and Kashmir Police said Shesh Paul Vaid that Hindus and Muslims could be armed and Village Defence Committees could be set up with proper planning. [6] As of 28 February 2023, there are over 100 men armed and provided weapons training in Dhangri, Rajouri. [7] The first VDC was set up under Shesh Paul Vaid when he was a Superintendent of Police (SP) in Bagankote village, Udhampur district (now Reasi district) in 1995. [6] As of 2024 the status of VDGs are active and are working in close coordination with the security forces, they are also equipped with weapons like L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle and are better trained to tackle militancy reletaed situation.
Jammu and Kashmir was a region formerly administered by India as a state from 1952 to 2019, constituting the southern and southeastern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India, Pakistan and China since the mid-20th century. The underlying region of this state were parts of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, whose western districts, now known as Azad Kashmir, and northern territories, now known as Gilgit-Baltistan, are administered by Pakistan. The Aksai Chin region in the east, bordering Tibet, has been under Chinese control since 1962.
The insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, also known as the Kashmir insurgency, is an ongoing separatist militant insurgency against the Indian administration in Jammu and Kashmir, a territory constituting the southwestern portion of the larger geographical region of Kashmir, which has been the subject of a territorial dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.
Doda district is an administrative district of the Jammu division of Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir in the Jammu region.
The 2000 Amarnath pilgrimage attack on 1 and 2 August was the massacre of between 89 to 105 people, with 62 others injured in at least five different coordinated attacks by Islamist militants in Anantnag district and Doda district of Indian administered Kashmir.
Sardar Farooq Khan is an Indian politician and former police officer who served with the Indian Police Service (IPS). He retired in 2013 as Inspector General of Police (IGP), Jammu and head of the Sher-I-Kashmir Police Academy at Udhampur. Khan is known for the creation of the Jammu and Kashmir Police (JKP) Special Task Force (STF) as well as being its first head in 1995; STF would later go on to be renamed as the Special Operations Group (SOG).
Shesh Paul Vaid, also known as S. P. Vaid, is an Indian police officer and former Director General of Police (DGP) of Jammu & Kashmir from 31 December 2016 till 6 September 2018.
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Human rights abuses in Kashmir have been perpetrated by various belligerents in the territories controlled by both India and Pakistan since the two countries' conflict over the region began with their first war in 1947–1948, shortly after the partition of British India. The organized breaches of fundamental human rights in Kashmir are tied to the contested territorial status of the region, over which India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars. More specifically, the issue pertains to abuses committed in Indian-administered Kashmir and in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
The 2013 Kishtwar Riots, which claimed three lives and injured 80, was a conflict between Muslim and Hindu communities in Kishtwar, Jammu and Kashmir. The riots occurred in the aftermath of the Eid festival on 9 August 2013, and provoked a significant government lockdown in the Jammu region. Despite that, the government was criticized for not preventing the riots.
Chanderbhaga region or Chenab region is a term sometimes used to refer to parts of the Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is used to refer to the present-day districts of Doda, Kishtwar, Ramban. These three districts used to be part of a single former district called Doda, which was created in 1948 out of the eastern parts of Udhampur district of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, and are sometimes collectively referred to as the Doda belt.
Zakir Rashid Bhat was the commander of Hizbul Mujahideen after the killing of Burhan Wani and Sabzar Bhat, who were the former commanders of the same outfit. He later became the chief of Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind.
The 2017 Nowhatta mob lynching, was the lynch mob murder and mutilation of an on-duty undercover Indian Jammu and Kashmir Police officer Muhammad Ayub Pandith, on the Muslim holy night of Laylat al-Qadr on Thursday 22 June 2017 by a mob in Nowhatta after a crowd shouted slogans in favor of Pakistan as well as al-Qaida jihadist Zakir Musa. Sajjad Ahmad Gilkar, a Hizbul Mujahideen militant, had played a key role in the lynching according to the state police.
Indian Army operations in Jammu and Kashmir include security operations such as Operation Rakshak, which began in 1990, Operation Sarp Vinash in 2003 and Operation Randori Behak in 2020. Other operations include humanitarian missions such as Operation Megh Rahat and operations with a social aim such as Operation Goodwill and Operation Calm Down. The Indian Army works in tandem with the other arms of the Indian Armed Forces and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir such as during Mission Sahayata or joint operations.
Lance Naik Nazir Ahmad Wani, AC, SM & Bar was an Indian Army soldier and a recipient of the Ashoka Chakra, India's highest peacetime military decoration. At the time of his death, he was serving with an auxiliary battalion of the army's Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry Regiment, the 162nd Infantry Battalion of the Territorial Army. He was posthumously awarded the Ashoka Chakra for his actions during a counterterrorism operation in which his unit was attached with the 34th Rashtriya Rifles battalion. He was the first recipient of the Ashok Chakra from Jammu and Kashmir.
Jammu and Kashmir; is a region administered by India as a union territory and consists of the southern portion of the larger Kashmir region, which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and between India and China since 1959. The Line of Control separates Jammu and Kashmir from the Pakistani-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan in the west and north. It lies to the north of the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab and to the west of Ladakh which is administered by India as a union territory.
Over ground workers (OGWs), according to Indian security forces, are people who help militants, or terrorists, with logistical support, cash, shelter, and other infrastructure with which armed groups and insurgency movements such as Hizbul Mujaheddin and Jaish-e-Muhammad in Jammu and Kashmir can operate. OGWs play a vital role in militant attacks, providing real-time information and support to the tactical elements. Over ground workers have diversified into other roles such as stone-pelting, mob-rioting, ideological support, radicalisation, and recruitment of militants. In 2020, up until 8 June, around 135 over ground workers were arrested in Jammu and Kashmir by the Jammu and Kashmir police. While the term is used and associated extensively with the Kashmir region, the term has also been used officially in other parts of India where insurgency is still active, such as in the Naxalite–Maoist insurgency and in Meghalaya for the Garo National Liberation Army.
Indian Armed Forces in Jammu and Kashmir encompass the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force, tri-service units such as the Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD), and paramilitary organisations of the Central Armed Police Forces such as the Border Security Force, the Central Reserve Police Force, the Sashastra Seema Bal and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police. Each three wings of India's military have their special forces deployed in the region including Indian Army's Para SF, the Indian Navy MARCOS and the Indian Air Force's Garud Commando Force. Apart from this, there is the elite police anti-insurgency force in the region, the Special Operations Group, of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
The People's Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF) is a militant terrorist organization actively engaged in insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir, an ongoing armed conflict between Kashmiri separatist militants and Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir. PAFF was established in 2020 by Jaish-e-Mohammad or Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Pakistan-based Jihadist groups.
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1993 Kishtwar massacre was the killing of 16–17 Hindu bus passengers by Muslim militants in the Sarthal area of Kishtwar district of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir in India on 14 August 1993. The massacre was the first of several communally motivated attacks and mass murders of Hindu civilians by militants during the insurgency in the territory. The massacre marked beginnings of the spread of insurgent violence to Jammu region and triggered a migration of some Hindus out of the erstwhile Muslim-majority Doda district.