New Delhi: Incidents of terrorism, stone-hurling and deaths of civilians and security personnel have been on a constant decline since the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, official data has revealed.
According to figures with the J&K Police, 2018 saw 228 terror-related incidents, which came down to 43 in 2023.
Encounters and counterterrorism operations also went down from 189 in 2018 to 48 in 2023. The number of civilian deaths went down from 55 in 2018 to 13 in 2023 and security personnel killed in action went from 91 to 25.
The data, accessed by ThePrint, also showed that 72 terrorists were killed in 2023, out of which 20 were from the Valley while the rest were of foreign origin.
At present, there are approximately 91 “active” terrorists in Jammu & Kashmir, with foreign terrorists accounting for nearly two-thirds of this number. This is also a reduction from 135 active terrorists operating in 2022, out of which 85 were of foreign origin while 50 were local.
This was reiterated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his ‘Viksit Bharat Viksit Jammu Kashmir’ event in Srinagar on Thursday.
He told his audience that the Union territory had touched “new heights of development because Jammu and Kashmir is breathing freely today”. “This freedom from restrictions has come after the abrogation of Article 370,” he added.
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J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha credited Modi for turning Kashmir into an “abode of peace” where people now “wear smiles on their faces”.
Sinha, who spoke at the same rally, said the days when Kashmir was known for separatism, terrorism and bloodshed were gone. “It was only possible because of the personal efforts of PM Modi that Kashmir has turned into an abode of peace as it was known for being the land of Sufis and Rishis,” he told the crowd at Srinagar’s Bakshi Stadium.
He said that in the past five years, J&K had witnessed a huge transformation as “no innocent life was wasted on the streets”.
“Nobody’s eyes were snatched by pellets. Street protests are over forever. The Tricolour is flying high at Clock Tower in Lal Chowk which signifies this change and reminds everyone of Kashmir of yesteryears. Bloodshed is history and peace has taken a front seat with every citizen of Kashmir wearing a smile on their faces today,” Sinha added.
Home Minister Amit Shah, who was in Jammu in January to launch an e-bus service, had also highlighted that terrorism had gone down 70 percent after the abrogation of Article 370. He had talked of an 81 percent decline in civilian deaths and a 48 percent decrease in the death of security personnel.
“This shows that a new era of happiness and peace has begun in Jammu & Kashmir,” Shah had said.
Shah said there were 2,654 incidents of organised stone-pelting in 2010, which were reduced to zero in 2023. There were 132 incidents of organised strikes in 2010, while not a single such event took place in 2023, the home minister added.
He gave a few other statistics too — 112 civilians had died in stone-pelting in 2010, but that number was zero in 2023; those injured in 2010 were 6,235, while not a single person was hurt last year.
‘Zero tolerance’
Speaking to ThePrint, a J&K police officer said the government has a policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism.
“The approach of the government is to dismantle the terror ecosystem. Security measures are being strengthened to sustain peace and stability in J&K. For this, we are enforcing round-the-clock nakas at strategic points, and have intensified cordon-and-search operations (CASO) to effectively deal with the challenges posed by terrorist organisations. We are also sharing intelligence on a real-time basis among all security forces operating in Jammu and Kashmir,” the officer said.
He added that day-and-night area domination, security arrangements through appropriate deployment, preventive operations involving identifying strategic supporters of terrorism and initiating investigations to expose their mechanisms of aiding and abetting terrorism were also being done.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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