Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: In the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack in J&K, CRPF has set up 43 temporary operating bases across the UT, each housing 16-25 personnel who will track and eliminate terrorists holed up in the higher reaches, security officials said on Wednesday.The temporary bases, 26 of which are located in the Kashmir division and 17 in the Jammu division, sit at a height of 6,000 feet and above. CRPF troops, accompanied by a few J&K Police personnel, use these bases for a few days at a time to launch search and assault operations against terrorists who usually use ‘dhoks’ (mud and stone huts) as temporary hideouts, awaiting instructions from their Pakistan-based handlers to execute terror attacks.CRPF has procured special equipment for these temporary bases, like tactical boots, winter jackets, sleeping bags and satellite phones.There are about two local terrorists and around 100 foreign terrorists active at present, according to data.The first set of such temporary bases were established by CRPF in April 2025 along the Pahalgam-Tral-Harwan axis, immediately after the April 2025 terrorist attack in Pahalgam. CRPF and other security forces had used one such base to zero in on the hideout of the three Pahalgam attackers, all Pakistanis, near the Dachigam area in Srinagar. All three terrorists were eliminated in Operation Mahadev in July 2025.Prior to the Pahalgam terror attack, the Pakistani terrorists had taken shelter in a dhok near the tourist site in Baisaran where they would gun down 25 tourists. The terrorists escaped into the surrounding forest soon after the attack. The security forces had to scour the forests for months before they could track their location.
