Union Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah said on Sunday that family members of terrorists and stone-pelters would be denied government jobs in Jammu and Kashmir, according to PTI.
“In Kashmir, we have taken a decision that if someone joins a terrorist organisation, their family members will not get any government job,” Shah told the news agency in an interview, adding that this would also apply to those who throw stones at security forces during protests.
The home minister clarified that the government would give a reprieve to those persons who come forward to inform the authorities of their family members who may be affiliated with terrorist groups.
In instances when a terrorist is surrounded by security forces, he is first given a chance to surrender, the home minister claimed. “We call family members like his mother or wife and ask them to make an appeal to the terrorist to surrender,” he said. “If he does not listen, he dies.”
Shah claimed that his government had put an end to the practice, in Kashmir, of militants’ funeral processions being taken out after they had been killed. “We have ensured that the terrorist is buried with all religious formalities but in an isolated place,” he said.
He also said that the National Investigation Agency, India’s anti-terrorism agency under the home ministry, had successfully ended political funding to terrorist groups in the region.
The home minister claimed that the Centre, led by the Narendra Modi government, has been able to successfully target terrorists and “eliminate the terror ecosystem”, resulting in less frequent terror attacks.
According to home ministry data shared in Parliament last year, there were 228 “terrorist-initiated incidents” in Jammu and Kashmir in 2018, as against 50 in 2023, reported PTI.
There were 189 gunfights between security forces and terrorists in 2018, as compared to 40 in 2023.
While 55 civilians were killed in terror incidents in 2018 in Jammu and Kashmir, in 2023 the toll stood at 5.
A total of 91 security personnel were killed in terror violence in Jammu and Kashmir in 2018, as compared to 15 in 2023.
On August 5, 2019, the Centre abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
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