Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 24: Taking a strong dig at former Chief Minister and National Conference (NC) vice-president, Omar Abdullah’s statement blaming NDA Government “to allow militancy and violence to re-emerge in the State”, Brig (retd) Anil Gupta, State Spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has accused the NC leader of trying to hide the truth from the people.
In a statement issued here, he said Union Law & IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad has already given details of the terrorists killed annually from 2012 to May this year that included 72(terrorists killed) in 2012, 67 in 2013, 110 in 2014, 108 in 2015, 150 in 2016, 217 in 2017 and 75 till May 2018.
Omar’s reaction that forces had to kill more terrorists during the period 2015 onwards because terrorism re-emerged during this period is not only a bundle of lies but a desperate attempt to hoodwink the people from reality. Brig Gupta said that it was due to the soft approach adopted towards terrorism by his Government that the security forces were not allowed to become pro-active by laying number of restrictions with the tacit approval of Congress led UPA Government at Centre. The security forces were denied permission to conduct offensive counter terror operations like cordon, cordon and search, seek and destroy by Omar Abdullah.
Omar was keener to remove AFSPA which the Army resisted because it knew the reality on ground. The number of terrorists, in fact had not reduced but were being allowed to train in the camps and jungles in higher reaches, terror support network was being strengthened and a network of over ground workers and sleeper cells was established during this period with the Government turning a blind eye, explained Brig Gupta.
As Head of Unified Command, Omar failed to synthesise the JK Police, Central Armed Police Forces, Army and various intelligence agencies as a result of which no synergised operations could be conducted. On the contrary he encouraged turf wars among them, said Brig Gupta.
Omar also closed his eyes to growing radicalisation in the Valley. Wahhabi radical Islam was encouraged at the expense of moderate Sufi Islam. No action was taken by the Omar Government to check misuse of social media glorifying terrorism and radicalising the young minds, said Brig Gupta. It was the soft approach and appeasement policy of NC-Congress Government led by Omar that was responsible for re-emergence of terrorism once they were challenged by the security forces after he relinquished the chair of the Head of Unified Command.
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