The Jammu and Kashmir government on Tuesday told the Assembly that 49 policemen had died and 134 were injured across the state in the last two years in militant attacks, Greater Kashmir reported.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s statement, in reply to a question that National Conference MLAs Mian Altaf Ahmad and Devender Singh Rana had asked, a day after Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Mohammad Naveed Jat shot dead two policemen and escaped from a hospital in Srinagar. Of the 49 policemen, 32 were killed in 2017 and 17 in 2016, Mufti said.

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Answering a separate question that National Conference leader Ali Muhammad Sagar asked, the chief minister said 280 youngsters from the state had joined militancy in the past three years, The Times of India reported.

At present, there are 2,694 people imprisoned in the state, of whom 228 men and eight women have been convicted. “The prisoners are categorised as convicts, under trials and detenues whose custody is regulated in accordance with the existing legal provisions,” Mufti said. There are no prisoners from recognised political parties under preventive detention, the chief minister added.

Infiltration attempts

Meanwhile, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju told the Lok Sabha on Tuesday that Indian security forces killed 75 militants in Jammu and Kashmir in 2017 during 515 infiltration cases from across the border, PTI reported. In 2016, 454 cases were reported, in which 45 militants were killed.

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Security forces have strengthened the security apparatus, Rijiju claimed, by using enhanced human intelligence and the technical intelligence grid.

Pakistan’s alleged ceasefire violations have increased in the past month. On February 4, four soldiers were killed after Pakistani troops allegedly violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control in the Bhimber Gali sector in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district.

Between January 18 and January 22, 14 people, including eight civilians, were killed in firing along the International Border in Jammu, Kathua and Samba districts and the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri districts.