221 Terrorists neutralised in J&K, stone pelting incidents dropped to 327 in 2020: MoS Home

The law-and-order situation in Jammu and Kashmir is improving with a reduction in the number of violent incidents in the Union Territory and development works going on, Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy said in Rajya Sabha on Monday. He said stone-pelting incidents in the Union Territory have come down to 327 in 2020 from 2,009 in 2019 and the number of terrorists neutralised has gone up to 221 in 2020 from 157 the previous year.

Reddy said ceasefire violations from Pakistan have increased. “Jammu and Kashmir is on the development path. People of Jammu and Kashmir are not asking for Article 370. People of J-K want development and employment for youth. Pakistan frequently tries to infiltrate and violates ceasefire to stop construction and development work,” he said. The minister said 127 people were injured from ceasefire violations in 2019 but that dropped to 71 in 2020. There were 216 infiltration attempts in 2019, but it has reduced to 99 in 2020, he said.

Terrorist violence also reduced to 244 in 2020 from 594 in 2019, the MoS Home said. Stressing that development works in Jammu and Kashmir were progressing in the right direction, Reddy said that two AIIMS-level super-speciality hospitals were being built in the Union Territory with an outlay of Rs 2,000 crore each while cancer hospitals were being set up in Jammu and Srinagar.

“Jammu and Kashmir has received the entire Rs 881 crore of the allocated amount under the Prime Minister development programme,” he said, adding two cancer institutes have been approved in Jammu.