Top officials, district police, civil heads to attend
*Focus to be on Rajouri, Poonch districts
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Jan 9: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has called a high-level meeting on January 11 to review security situation in Jammu region especially in the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch which witnessed surge in terror incidents last year.
Officials told the Excelsior that the meeting among others will be attended by Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo, Director General of Police (DGP) RR Swain, Principal Secretary to LG Dr Mandeep K Bhandari, Additional DGP Jammu Anand Jain, Divisional Commissioner Ramesh Kumar, DIGs Shakti Pathak (Jammu), Suleman Choudhary (Udhampur), Sunil Gupta (Doda) and Dr Haseeb Mughal (Rajouri) and all 10 Deputy Commissioners and SSPs of the region.
“Some senior officers of the Intelligence agencies are also expected to join,” they said, adding that all officers have been asked to attend the meeting physically at the Jammu Convention Centre.
A comprehensive review of the security scenario in the entire Jammu province will be taken up at the meeting. Besides, development works of the region will also come up for exhaustive assessment.
While eight out of 10 districts in the region are completely peaceful with no untoward incident pertaining to militancy reported from there, peace is sometimes shattered in Rajouri and Poonch districts by the terrorists by carrying out attacks on Army and civilians.
Nineteen soldiers were martyred in four attacks by the terrorists in Rajouri and Poonch during 2023. However, security forces have eliminated more than 30 terrorists in the two districts last year, both on the Line of Control (LoC) as well as hinterland.
“Both Central and UT Governments have initiated steps to eliminate terrorists in Rajouri and Poonch districts and Thursday’s meeting will further deliberate on the strategy,” the officials said.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah was scheduled to review security situation and development works in Jammu during his day-long visit here today. However, the visit was deferred due to inclement weather conditions.
Shah had, however, reviewed security scenario of Jammu and Kashmir especially Rajouri and Poonch districts in a meeting at New Delhi on January 2. The meeting was attended by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, NSA Ajit Doval and senior officers of MHA, Army, paramilitary forces and top officers of civil and police administration of the Union Territory.
Apart from security review, the officials said, pace of ongoing development works in the region will also come up for a review as less than three months are now left for completion of the current financial year.
“Various other issues are also expected to be taken up at the meeting which is first of the current year,” the officials said.
Four bravehearts sacrificed their lives and three others were injured when terrorists ambushed two Army vehicles at Dera Ki Gali in Surankote tehsil of Poonch district on December 21. Next day, three civilians were found dead under mysterious circumstances. Army has ordered inquiry into civilian killings and shifted some of its senior officers.
The Home Minister was scheduled to visit Dera Ki Gali to meet next of kin of slain family members.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha met family members of the deceased at Rajouri on December 27.
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