‘Announcement on Net restoration soon’
Sanjeev K. Sharma
JAMMU, Dec 31: Claiming that terrorist activities in the newly formed Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir have gone down by 30 per cent as compared to the previous year, Director General of J&K Police (DGP), Dilbag Singh today said that 102 Pakistani terrorists are still active in the UT.
“The number of active terrorists is provided by various agencies which keep on reviewing their strength as it keeps on changing with their (terrorists’) killing by the security forces during encounters,” he further said.
Addressing the annual press conference here at Police Headquarters, the DGP said that shelf-life of a terrorist at present is not more than three months and sometimes it gets reduced to the extent of just a few hours.
“There are incidents when a person had joined militancy in the morning and got eliminated by the evening,” he said, adding that apart from Pakistani terrorists, some 150 local terrorists too are active in J&K.
Singh informed that about 160 terrorists were killed and 102 arrested in J&K this year and the number of local youths joining militancy has also gone down in 2019.
He said, last year 218 local youths had joined terrorist outfits but the number fell to 139 this year and of the new recruits, only 89 have survived while there are only a few old surviving terrorists like Jehangir Saroori and Riyaz Nayikoo.
“In 80 per cent successful anti-terror operations, 160 terrorists including foreigners were neutralized this year wherein 11 cops of J&K police were also martyred along with 72 personnel from other forces,” the J&K police chief informed adding that a total of 102 terrorists have been arrested and 10 terrorists have surrendered this year.
“Security forces are working in close coordination and promptly reach to the spot of terrorist activities and the local youth now have become more aware to fall into the trap of terrorists,” Singh said.
He claimed that collateral damages during encounters and anti-terrorist operations too went down this year.
Without mentioning any proper timeline, the DGP said that presently the situation has improved a lot in J&K and “some positive announcement towards mobile internet restoration may be made soon.”
On certain elements waiting to fan disturbances after mobile internet restoration, Singh said that police is keeping a strict watch on all such elements.
“Earlier too, we took care of such elements and we are prepared to take care of them in future too,” Dilbagh said.
It is pertinent to mention here that internet services in J&K were snapped on August 5 when the Union Government had abrogated Articles 370 and 35-A, which provided special status to the erstwhile J&K State, and also bifurcated J&K into two UTs of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Earlier the DGP said that J&K police has facilitated three peaceful elections, incident free annual Amaranth pilgrimage and worked hard to meet the challenge of maintaining peace in post-abrogation of Article 370 scenario.
“Earlier the law and order situation was derailed after the killing of terrorist Burhan Wani,” he said adding that incidents of law and order have also gone down in J&K by 36 per cent this year.
He said that incidents of ceasefire violations and infiltration attempts have increased this year but number of successful infiltrations has fallen to 130 as compared to 143 last year.
“The Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister have lauded the services of J&K Police at a meeting of police chiefs of all the States and UTs recently,” the J&K DGP maintained.
On poor investigations leading to acquittal of culprits in the court, Singh said that most of the investigations remain successful but if “our investigations lack something and the culprit is acquitted, we internally review things in such cases.”
He also said that stone pelting has almost come to an end in the Kashmir valley and also talked about achievements of J&K cops in sports and managing road traffic.
He also mentioned about welfare schemes about the wards of martyred cops and informed that two schools run by the Police Department in J&K are doing well and have now adopted CBSE pattern.
The DGP lauded the services rendered by drug de-addiction centres run by the J&K Police and said that soon more such centres will be opened in the UT.
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