The banning of ‘Jamaat-e-Islami’ in Jammu and Kashmir brought into focus the role of over-ground workers (OGWs) in assisting terrorist organizations. Examine the role played by OGWs in assisting terrorist organizations in insurgency affected areas. Discuss measures to neutralize influence of OGWs.

Over-ground workers (OGWs) are ostensibly civilian sympathisers who provide the vital support ecosystem for armed militants. The 2019 ban on Jamaat-e-Islami in Jammu and Kashmir under the UAPA highlighted how such networks sustain terrorist organisations without themselves bearing arms.

Role of OGWs in assisting terror groups

• Logistics and shelter: Providing hideouts, food, transport and safe passage across the countryside.
• Recruitment and radicalisation: Identifying, motivating and channelling youth into militant ranks.
• Intelligence: Passing on movement of security forces and acting as spotters.
• Terror financing: Routing hawala funds, extortion money and material support.
• Propaganda: Amplifying separatist and communal narratives, organising stone-pelting and mobilising crowds at encounter sites.

Measures to neutralise OGWs

• Robust intelligence mapping and databases of the support network, with prosecution under UAPA and NIA/ED action against financiers.
• Choking terror funding through hawala crackdowns and freezing assets.
• Counter-radicalisation, de-addiction and rehabilitation to reclaim vulnerable youth, plus employment and outreach.
• Regulating misuse of social media and countering propaganda.
• Winning community trust so locals stop shielding OGWs.

Since OGWs are the connective tissue between society and armed cadres, dismantling them through intelligence, financial disruption and winning hearts and minds is often more decisive than tactical operations against gunmen.