Jammu, Feb. 20 -- In a worrying shift in strategy, Pakistan-based terror handlers are now increasingly attempting to exploit criminal networks in the Jammu region to revive militancy, in addition to using narco channels to fund terror outfits.
Recent developments - including the arrest of a Gangyal youth in Mohali for alleged links with Dubai-based Pakistani gangster-turned-terrorist Shahzad Bhatti and the escape episode at the RS Pura Juvenile Home - have reinforced intelligence inputs that terror handlers across the border are trying to lure local gangsters to further their designs.
Sources said a similar modus operandi was used in the early 1990s, when certain criminal elements from Jammu were reportedly drawn into supporting terrorist...