Militants under great pressure: Defence Minister
Union Defence Minister, Arun Jaitley Sunday said that militants in Kashmir Valley are under great pressure and their life shelf has dwindled to a few months now.
He said that the priority of BJP government is to “clean up the Valley of armed militants.” He said that militants are now on the run “and they cannot continue to terrorise the people for decades”.
“Today no big militant can dream of committing terror acts and continue to terrorise the Valley for decades, but today their life shelf has dwindled to a few months. I will specifically praise the Jammu & Kashmir police for working hard (towards eliminating terrorists),” he said.
Media reports said that Jaitley had said militants in Kashmir were “now under great pressure” and the financial crunch caused by demonetisation and the action taken by National Investigation Agency (NIA) on illegal foreign funding have checked illegal activities in Jammu and Kashmir in large scale.
Jaitley however refrained from making any comment on the standoff between India and China in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan trijunction, just saying “let us have full faith on our security forces”.
Jaitley has said India faced two serious threats — one with respect to Jammu and Kashmir with maximum incidents happening from across the border, and second being the problem of Left-Wing Extremism in central parts of the country.
“Since independence, Pakistan has never agreed that Kashmir is an integral part of India. That has been their unfinished agenda. They tried conventional war. But India’s capability was way ahead in the conventional war. The wars of 1965, 1971 and Kargil clearly proved this,” he is quoted to have said.
The defence minister said that there was a move by the forces to clean up the Valley of armed militants.
He said the money received by militants and other such groups has been squeezed post-demonetisation and there has been the effect of the actions taken by the NIA against foreign funding allegedly used for subversive activities.
“Whenever there was an encounter (earlier), hundreds and thousands would come out to throw stones. Many a times, terrorists would escape under the protection of stone throwers. This is now becoming a history.
“Those who were coming in hundred and thousands, today their number is limited to 20, 30 and 50. For the first time in the history, we have been they have started looting banks,” he said.
Jaitley said the militants are under tremendous pressure. “They are on the run. Their number is also declining. Security forces are dominating them ,” he said.
KV Correspondent
