A group of young Kashmiri police officers have told Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh that a “softer administrative approach” was required to address the school and college students who were recently seen throwing stones at security forces.
Mr. Singh was told that the situation could be handled through various police initiatives. Also required were more number of juvenile homes, as most students who threw stones were below 18 years of age, and they could not be housed in jails like other prisoners.
The officers had to come to Delhi earlier this week to attend “National Security Strategy,” a first-of-its-kind meeting organised by the Intelligence Bureau.
The May 23-24 meeting provided a platform to various officers from across the country to deliberate on various internal security issues.
The officers also said that most terrorists operating in rural areas were “locals” and the State police were tackling it with an iron-hand. One of them also said that the policy towards separatists was best decided by the Centre, an official who attended the meeting told The Hindu . Earlier also, the J&K administration expressed similar concerns when it told Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi that Delhi-based news television channels were portraying the State in a negative light.
Officials posted in south Kashmir had said that schoolchildren from only four or five institutions participated in throwing stones at security forces and the national media portrayed as if all the 50,000 school and college students were embroiled in violent acts.
Mr. Singh was also told that after Hizb Mujahideen terrorists Burhan Wani’s death last year, around 90 local men had joined the terrorist outfit.
As far as attack on defence installations were concerned, the officials said that the Army was best equipped to handle them.
The conference spread over six sessions had exhaustive discussions on counter-terror, terror funding, North East insurgency, Left Wing Extremism and cyber security.
Terror funding
A session on terror funding explored whether strict KYC norms by banks were pushing the suspicious transactions towards the hawala route.
