New Delhi: In the wake of recent civilian killings in Jammu and Kashmir, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is sending five additional companies to the Union Territory (UT) and the deployment of these companies will be completed within one week.
A senior CRPF officer, requesting anonymity, told ANI that the deployment is part of an earlier move of the central government under which 25 companies of CRPF have already been deployed since the cases of civilian killings started being reported since last month.
“Considering recent civilian killings in Jammu and Kashmir, five additional CRPF teams are being sent to the Union Territory. These companies will be deployed there within a week. The force earlier had sent 25 companies in J&K,” said a source.
The decision to send five more teams to J&K has come after the terrorists shot dead a salesman Ibrahim Khan of Bandipore district at Srinagar in the UT on Monday. This was the second such attack on a civilian in the city this week after constable Tawseef Ahmad Wani, 29, was killed in Srinagar’s Batamaloo region on Sunday.
Besides, 25 BSF companies were also deployed by the Centre in J-K ealier.
The CRPF officer also said that the force has intensified its checking in the Valley and nearly 15,000 people, including those travelling in almost 8,000 vehicles, are being checked every day.
The situation has been pretty tense in Jammu and Kashmir since the spate of civilian killings last month wherein as many as 11 migrants were gunned down by terrorists, who mostly belonged to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
In the brutal killings that plagued Kashmir last month, a majority of the migrants who were targeted were from Bihar and from minority communities. In multiple counter-attacks carried out in the Valley by security forces, at least 13 terrorists have been shot dead, including a top LeT commander.
Besides LeT, the United Liberations Front (ULF) had claimed responsibility for the attacks on three of the 11 civilians on October 17. In this incident that happened in the Wanpoh area of Kulgam district, two people from Bihar were gunned down while one was left injured. The ULF later released a statement warning all non-locals to leave the Valley or “get ready for what they deserve.
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