Terror attacks reduced by 70 pc in hinterland, 86 pc in J-K, says MoS for Home Reddy

Terror attacks in the hinterland have reduced by 70 per cent while coming down to 86 per cent in Jammu and Kashmir during the last decade due to government's zero-tolerance policy, the Central government said on Tuesday.

The information was given by Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy in a written reply to the question of Congress MP from Punjab Msh Tewari in the Lok Sabha.

"Terror attacks in the hinterland during the last decade as compared to the previous decade have reduced by 70 per cent from 71 to 21 and the number of terrorist incidents in Jammu and Kashmir has reduced by 86 per cent, that is, from 23,290 to 3187," said the minister.

Tewari, a former Union Minister, had sought to know whether the number of terror attacks has substantially reduced during the period between April 2009 and June 2019 as compared to the previous decade.

"As compared to the corresponding period of 2018, the first half of this year witnessed a reduction of 28 per cent in terror attacks and an increase of 59 per cent initiated by the security forces against terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir," said Reddy.

"Forces have been taking effective and continuous action in countering terrorism," said the Minister.

Reddy said government's "zero tolerance" policy against terrorism has led to a reduction in the terror attacks.

"Close and effective coordination mechsm exists between intelligence and security agencies at the Centre and the state level," the Minister said.

"The Multi-Agency Centre (MAC) has been strengthened and re-orgsed to enable it to function on a 24x7 basis for real-time collation and sharing of intelligence with the central and state agencies concerned," Reddy added.

He stressed that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been strengthened for investigation of terror-related cases while the states have raised special forces to deal with terror attacks.

Reddy said that Central Armed Police Forces and the National Security Guards (NSGs) have also been stationed at different locations to assist the states in dealing with such incidents.

"The central agencies orgse capacity-building programmes for the state's forces regarding intelligence sharing and investigation of terror cases," he further said.

( With inputs from ANI )