LeT’s proxy TRF has skilled terrorists from Lashkar’s core group: Intelligence officials

The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistani terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which has claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack on tourists in Pahalgam, is known to target civilians, including migrant workers, Kashmiri Pandits, etc., in Jammu and Kashmir for the past three-four years.

The TRF is also behind the twin-drone attacks at the Jammu Indian Air Force (IAF) station in June 2021 as well as several instances of dropping weapons and explosives using the unmanned aerial vehicles sent from across the border.

But multiple assessments by Indian intelligence agencies reveal that TRF is nothing but the core LeT group. “The highly skilled terrorists of LeT are behind all these attacks on civilians since 2020. Following Pulwama attack and abrogation of Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, the name ‘TRF’ was popped up by anti-India planners in Pakistan Army and ISI in 2019 to avoid scrutiny from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF),” said a counterterrorism official.

It has often released details of Indian officials, Kashmiri Pandits, etc., on social media, and had also threatened former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad amid a series of his rallies during the J&K assembly elections.

“The modus operandi adopted by Pakistan through the so-called TRF is to create an atmosphere of fear among local civilians and those visiting Kashmir, instead of only targeting the security forces. They also don’t indulge in firefights with security forces anymore and carry out hit-and-run firing or grenade attacks,” said the officer cited above.

The ministry of home affairs (MHA) banned it in January 2023 under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Its commander, Sajjad Gul, was also declared an individual terrorist in 2022.

“TRF came into existence in the year 2019 as a proxy outfit of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a proscribed terrorist organisation listed at serial number 5 of the first schedule under the UAPA. TRF has been involved in carrying out propaganda on terror activities, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration of terrorists and smuggling of weapons and narcotics from Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir,” the MHA said in its notification in January 2023.

Officials said that LeT and its proxy are being helped by overground workers (OGWs) not only in the Valley but in Jammu region as well, which has seen a series of attacks on civilians since 2021.

After conducting searches in January in J&K in connection with a probe into killings of non-locals, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said it has recovered several articles from the premises belonging to sympathisers, cadres and OGWs of proscribed terror outfit LeT and its offshoot TRF.

The suspects were involved in harbouring, sheltering, and providing logistical assistance to terrorists,” agency said in January.

NIA investigations in the case so far have revealed that masterminds of LeT and TRF were in touch with youths in the Kashmir Valley to orchestrate attacks on non-locals as part of a conspiracy to wage war against the government of India.

“The criminal conspiracy was reportedly planned both physically and through cyberspace, using encrypted social media applications,” it said.