Those who backed stone-pelters were in J&K govt before August 2019, says Amit Shah

AHMED ALI FAYYAZ

New Delhi, Oct 5: Union Home Minister Amit Shah, currently on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir, has said that the Narendra Modi government has consigned the chronic stone pelting and hartals in the valley to the archives of history but not before 42,000 people lost their lives in 30 long years of insurgency and terrorism.

"Those who support terrorism while sitting in the government were identified and action was taken against them. Those who used to call for hartal or throw stones on the security forces were curbed totally and now no one has courage to give any such call," Shah said in his address after inaugurating and laying the foundation stone of a number of developmental projects in Jammu on the second day of his visit on Tuesday.

"Do you know why there is not a single stone-pelting incident in Kashmir now? Because the stone-pelters were sitting in the government at that time," Shah said in a reference to 2015-19.

The valley's fiercest stone pelting on the police and security forces and the separatists' hartal calendars dominated Kashmir for over three years after the Hizbul Mujahideen poster boy Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter in July 2016.

Shah said that the Pakistan-sponsored militancy and separatism had consumed 42,000 human lives in Jammu and Kashmir, even as the situation had been brought completely under control after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. He said that with a policy of zero-tolerance to terrorism, the Modi government wanted to end gun culture and corruption and bring all-round development so as to make Jammu and Kashmir number one among all States and Union Territories across India.

Shah said that terror incidents had been brought down by 56 per cent and the casualties among the security forces by 84 per cent. Recruitment of terror cadres had also dipped remarkably in the last three years, he asserted.

Holding three political families responsible for the backwardness of Jammu and Kashmir, Shah said the UT lagged behind on all development parameters due to their 'misrule'. He claimed that the situation changed after the Modi government assumed power at the Centre in 2014 and most of the changes in Jammu and Kashmir were brought about after August 2019.

According to the Union Home Minister, aggregate infrastructure investment was not more than Rs 19,000 crore from 1947 to 2019. He said that a total investment of Rs 56,000 had come to Jammu and Kashmir in the last three years. As many as 27 lakh people of Jammu and Kashmir were now getting health insurance benefits of up to Rs 5 lakh while 58 per cent people had assured supply of drinking water.

Shah also referred to the Rs 80,000 crore development package announced by Prime Minister Modi. The projects, he said, were progressing well even as some of them had already been completed. As many as 63 major projects of 15 Ministries with a total outlay of Rs 80,068 crore are being executed in the PM's package in Jammu and Kashmir.

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--indianarrative