Ruthlessly suspended kin, supporters of terrorists in J&K, says Amit Shah

THE CENTRE has taken concrete measures against terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and “ruthlessly” suspended relatives and sympathisers of terrorists from government service to send across a message, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in Rajya Sabha on Friday.

He said the government has also banned supporters of terrorism from getting passports, government jobs and government contracts.

Shah said that due to the government’s zero-tolerance policy against terrorism, the number of terror incidents and related deaths and injuries have dropped in Jammu and Kashmir, North East and Left-wing extremism-affected regions, which saw 92,000 deaths in four decades.

He emphasised that Maoism will end in the country by March 21, 2026.

Shah was replying to a debate on the working of the Ministry of Home Affairs. “Article 370 was the root of insurgency. The seeds of separation were sown in this Article. However, the makers of our Constitution were visionary and this was temporary and its solution was built into the same Article. On 5 August, 2019, Article 370 was abrogated and the dream of the Constitution’s architects that there cannot be two heads, two constitutions and two flags in the country was fulfilled,” he said.

Shah said that earlier terrorists were glorified, and their funerals were attended by thousands, but now they are buried where they were killed.

“Their family members were in government jobs, we have ruthlessly suspended relatives of terrorists from government jobs to send a message, their supporters were even in Bar Council and now they are either in jails in Delhi or Srinagar. We have banned terrorists and terrorism supporters from getting passports, government jobs and contracts, and hence people are not associating with them,” Shah said.

In response to questions raised on the impact of Article 370’s abrogation, Shah read out a series of statistics to stress his point on decline in terrorist activities. “Between 2004 and 2014, there were 7,217 terror-related incidents which have reduced to 2,282 between 2014 and 2024. There has been a 70 per cent reduction in deaths due to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir, a 50 per cent drop in deaths of security forces,” he said.

Shah said there was no organised stone-pelting incident in 2024. As opposed to that, between 2010 and 2014, an average of 2,654 incidents were recorded per year. “There were 112 deaths due to stone pelting earlier and 6,000 citizens were injured, now there are none as there is no stone pelting,” he said.

The government, he said, had given 40,000 government jobs since 2019 and 18,000 youths were given taxis while 15,000 young women were given financial assistance under Tejaswini scheme.

On Naxalism, Shah said the government had taken a nuanced approach and was allocating money at the right places while empowering security forces. Big leaders belonging to the zonal committee, sub-zonal committee, state-level committee, area committees and district committees have been killed, he said.

The minister said that there was a 73 per cent drop in deaths of security forces and that from December 2023 to March 20 this year, 380 Maoists were killed.

“In the same state where nothing happened earlier, 2,619 Naxals have either been killed, arrested or have surrendered, this is the effect of our approach,” he said.

On the Northeast, Shah said the Narendra Modi government has connected with the hearts of people from the region. Without going into details on Manipur, he said, “There is peace in Manipur now, there are talks between the two (Kuki-Zo and Meiteis) communities… dialogue is the way ahead and we will soon be successful in this endeavour.” He said the Centre had signed about 19 peace accords in the past five years and 10,900 militants had surrendered arms and joined mainstream.

On the work of the National Investigation Agency, Shah said that 57 people were declared terrorists and 23 organisations as terror outfits. “We have banned 14 Hurriyat organisations. We also banned Popular Front of India and conducted raids against them in over 20 states and have put them behind bars. Some people who tried to become Bhindranwale are now reciting Guru Granth Sahib,” Shah said, referring to Amritpal Singh of Warris Punjab De.

“This is Modi ji’s government. We won’t tolerate political ideology supporting terrorism to flourish in the country,” he said.

The Union Home Minister also responded to the concerns raised on the narcotics and drugs menace in the country. Sharing concerns of MPs, Shah said, “I want to tell the country through this House that the government cannot fight this alone. We are making several efforts. For the government, a (drug) user is a victim, and the peddler or drug trade is the criminal. That is our approach.”

Elaborating, he said that when the government seizes a small drug packet, the probe tries to go to the source of the supply and if drugs are seized at ports or airports, the intended destination trail is investigated. “Between 2004 and 2014, Rs 40,000 crore worth of drugs was seized, and now Rs 1.5 lakh crore worth drugs have been seized. In the last five years, 23,000 kg of synthetic drugs worth over Rs 14,000 crore have been either destroyed or disposed of,” Shah said.

He said the increased seizures reflect the government’s strict policy against the drug menace.