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Peace dividend up in J&K after strong action against terror

For the first time, the local terrorist numbers have touched around 60 and the number of Pakistani terrorists is also come down to two figures after 47 were neutralized by the security forces till September 30, 2022.

Published on: Oct 7, 2022, 10:00:46 IST
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Over the past three decades, violence and killing of innocents in Jammu and Kashmir is directly proportional to the number of Pakistani and local terrorists operating in the erstwhile state.

The Narendra Modi government's focus is on socio-economic empowerment of the people of J&K, The counter-terror action ensures that peace is maintained in the entire troubled land.
The Narendra Modi government's focus is on socio-economic empowerment of the people of J&K, The counter-terror action ensures that peace is maintained in the entire troubled land.

Data collated from the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the security agencies and shared with the Home Minister Amit Shah during his security review meeting in Srinagar last Wednesday shows that the total number of local terrorists have touched an all time low of around 60 with the foreign terrorist numbers also coming down from three to two figures after 47 of them were neutralized by the security forces.

The success of the security forces is partly due to synergy between the law enforcement and central intelligence agencies. The coordination between the two has resulted in actionable intelligence and precise counter-terror action with awareness of the agencies on the social media and terror channels.

Counter-terror data reveals that the total number of terror related incidents has come down from 417 in 2018 to 110 up to September 30, 2022, with 255 incidents in 2019 (the year the Modi government abrogated article 370), 244 in 2020, 228 in the entire 2021 and 90 up to September 30, 2021. The dip in the terror related incidents is due to activated counter-insurgency grid and efficient action by the JKP, Security Forces and the Special CT forces of the Indian Army.

The law-and-order situation in the terror hit UT has vastly improved with total number of incidents drastically coming down from 825 in 2018 to 24 up to September 30, 2022, with no incidents in the Jammu sector. There were 584 incidents in 2019, 147 in 2020, 77 in 2021 and 65 up to September 30, 2021, for direct comparison.

The total number of terrorists killed by the security forces remains in three figures with 257 neutralized in 2018; 157 in 2019; 225 in 2020; 182 in 2021; 120 up to September 30, 2021, and 167 up to September 30, 2022. The figure of 167 killed till last month includes 120 local terrorists and 47 foreign terrorists. Even though the security forces label them as local terrorists, these youth are radicalized or recruited by Pakistan based terror factories in Lahore, Bahawalpur, or in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Security forces monitoring agitation in Kashmir Valley using latest technology.
Security forces monitoring agitation in Kashmir Valley using latest technology.

These youth first brainwashed in the name of Islamic jihad and then armed with area weapons to cause mayhem and violence in the UT. The Pakistani intent to cause mayhem in Kashmir continues at the same pace with its deep state continuing with its objective to hit India.

The total number of terrorists/ suspects arrested by the security forces remains high with 847 (including 71 terrorists) booked in 2018; 609 (49 terrorists) in 2019; 781 (75 terrorists) in 2020 and 741 (71 terrorists) in 2021. The figures up to September 30 in 2021 and 2022 shows that 595 (49 terrorists) and 600 (128 terrorists) were arrested by the security forces respectively.

Figures show that the number of terror modules busted by the security forces has gone up to 111 till September 30, 2022, as compared to 82 during the same period last year. The terror hideouts busted till last month were 20 as compared to 23 during the same period last year.

The terror recruitment level has also come down to 89 this year as compared to 108 during the same period last year. But the recruitment numbers were a high of 206 in 2018, 143 in 2019, 172 in 2020 and 137 in entire 2021.

While the Modi government focus is on socio-economic empowerment of the UT people, the counter-terror action ensures that peace is maintained in the entire troubled land. The two go hand in hand.

  • Shishir Gupta
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Shishir Gupta

    Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More