The Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, on Tuesday called for separating religion from terrorism and strongly condemned the Mumbai terror attack of November 26.
A day after taking over as the Chief Minister of the State,Omar was speaking at the meeting of Chief Ministers on Internal Security, inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi today.
The meeting was also attended by Union Ministers of Defence and Home and Chief Ministers’ of various states.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Abdullah expressed sympathies with the families of those who died or were injured in the terror attack, adding that Islam neither preaches nor condones killing of innocent people.
Referring to the recently-enacted Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, Mr. Omer said that while these changes may be necessary in the Central context, care must be taken to ensure proper implementation of the law. He said sometimes implementation of law makes it look bad, as has happened in the past. The Chief Minister said the country can ill-afford to repeat the mistakes of TADA and POTA.
The Chief Minister also emphasized on continuously sensitizing the security forces to respect human rights of the people, arguing that the damages caused by ignoring this aspect are always enormous, both politically and from the security point-of-view.
While addressing the audience, the Chief Minister said that he will spare no effort to put Jammu & Kashmir on the path to peace, progress and prosperity, even as he described peace as the key to all progress.
"I am young and have a vision of the future of people of the State and for that and I and my government will leave no stone unturned to put the State on the path of peace, progress and prosperity", Mr. Omar said, adding that those who were lost to senseless violence two decades ago cannot be brought back, but tears of grieving parents, widows and orphans can be wiped.
The Chief Minister said the situation in the State is fast improving and the graph of terrorism has considerably gone down, adding that the recently-held Assembly election in a peaceful manner is proof enough and gave credit for bringing about such a turnaround in the ground situation to jawans and officers of police, paramilitary forces and army, and equally to the people of the State, who braved challenges and suffered all these years. He said the State was grateful to the Central Government for giving unconditional and unflinching physical, financial and moral support in fighting terrorism. However, he said there is no room for complacency and terrorism has to be fought resolutely and with determination.
Omar said through the massive turnout in the recently-held Assembly elections, the people of the State had conveyed that the new Government must deliver on its promise of all-round development, which is the biggest antidote for terrorism.
Making a case against too many NSG hubs in the country, the Chief Minister said that it will tend to minimize the exclusivity of the NSG. He pleaded for providing more commando training opportunities and said while the commando training school is coming up at Awantipora at Kashmir, another needs to be set up at Jammu for which he sought sanction from Union Home Ministry. He also called for introduction of forensic science facilities in training institutes to improve the knowledge about use of forensic techniques in investigation of the crime. He also called for special incentives for the officials to take the assignments in intelligence gathering.
The Chief Minister said in Jammu & Kashmir, system for collection of intelligence on the activities of terrorists has evolved over time, as a response to the prolonged proxy war. He said the Unified Command of various forces and J&K Police as formal systems have helped in tackling terrorism in the State.
He emphasized on the creation of centralized databank with access to all the field formations on counter-terrorist matters to increase operational capabilities.