On December 14, the Ministry of Home Affairs informed Rajya Sabha that in three years, from 2020 to 2022, nine Hindus were killed in Kashmir Valley. While replying to an unstarred question by Rajmani Patel, Minister of State for Ministry of Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said in a written reply that the Government of India follows a zero-tolerance policy against terrorism. He said that since 2018, there has been a substantial decrease in the terror attacks in the valley.
According to the home ministry data, 1 Kashmiri Pandit was killed in 2020, 4 in 2021 and 4 Kashmiri Pandits have been killed this year, which included a person from the Kashmiri Rajpur community. In 2018, there were 417 terror attacks reported, which were reduced to 229 in 2021.
The MoHA was also asked about the money spent on security in the valley. The MoS said that multiple agencies work together to assure security in the valley, and the expenditure on all the agencies is not maintained centrally. The Ministry further provided the details of expenditure incurred by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Security Related Expenditure on Police of Jammu & Kashmir.
As per the records, the Ministry reimbursed Rs 2,814.095 crores in three years to the Government of Jammu & Kashmir. Rs 1,267 crores were spent in the financial year 2019-20, Rs 611 crores in the financial year 2020-21 and Rs 936.095 in the financial year 2021-22.
The Government of India is taking multiple steps to ensure security in the valley that includes including the clock nakas at strategic points, intensified CASO, surveillance of persons of interest, sharing of intelligence inputs among security agencies working in the valley and more.
In an answer to another question on internal security, the home ministry said that the Government has taken various steps to strengthen the security architecture of the country, such as strengthening the legal framework including amendments in the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 and National Investigation Agency (Act), 2008, strengthening of NIA by capacity building and providing adequate infrastructure and manpower, ensuring close and effective coordination mechanism between intelligence and security agencies at the Centre and State level, modernizing of police and the Central Armed Police Forces, strengthening of border security grid and coastal security etc.
The ministry said that the Multi Agency Centre (MAC) has been strengthened and re-organised to enable it to function on 24X7 basis for real time collection and sharing of intelligence amongst intelligence agencies and States. Moreover, the states have raised special forces to deal with terror incidents and Central Armed Police Forces and National Security Guards have also been stationed at different locations of the country to assist the States.
