Attacks on non-locals, Kashmiri Pandits in Kashmir: night patrols, area domination, CCTV surveillance soon

Police are mapping villages and areas where non-local labourers and Kashmiri Pandits live in Valley

In the wake of increased attacks on non-locals and Kashmiri Pandits by militants, the Jammu and Kashmir administration on Wednesday decided to launch night patrolling, domination of areas inhabited by migrant labourers and enforce strict rules to make closed-circuit television (CCTV) mandatory for businesses in the Valley.

The police are mapping the villages and areas where non-local labourers and Kashmiri Pandits live in the Valley to augment the security grid there. 

“Security forces have intensified night patrolling in remote villages where Kashmiri Pandits live and non-local labourers work. This is to prevent militants from attacking soft targets,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vijay Kumar told  The Hindu.

Those behind the recent attacks have been identified. “A hunt is on to arrest or neutralise them,” he said. 

Around 808 Kashmiri Pandits families decided to stay back in the Valley in the 1990s when most of the community members left in the face of raging militancy. Around 3,800 Kashmiri Pandits have moved back to Kashmir in the past few years and taken up government jobs under a special Central package and are living in guarded accommodations constructed in most districts of Kashmir. 

Security forces on Wednesday claimed to have killed two militants behind civilian killings in an operation in south Kashmir’s Tral area in Pulwama. They were identified as Safat Manzoor Sofi alias Muavia of the Ansar Gazwat-ul-Hind and Umer Teli alias Talha of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

“They were operating in Srinagar and shifted to Tral recently. Both were involved in several terror crimes in Srinagar city, including the recent killing of a sarpanch (Sameer Ahmad) in Khanmoh,” Mr. Kumar stated.