India boosts security ahead of G20 meet
SRINAGAR: India has stepped up security in the Jammu and Kashmir region because of an increase in militant atacks in the run-up to a G20 meeting on tourism in the Himalayan territory, officials said on Wednesday.
The city of Srinagar, the summer capital of the federal territory, is due to host a tourism working group meeting of G20 members on May 22-24, part of a series of meetings ahead of a G20 summit in New Delhi in September.
Militants have stepped up atacks this year in the Jammu region, across the mountains from the Kashmir Valley where Srinagar is located.
Ten soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in four atacks in Jammu this year.
Security officials said they fear the separatist militants could try to promote their cause with an atack before or during the G20 meeting.
“The timing of these atacks is worrisome as they are planned just before the G20 meeting,” said a senior Indian army officer in the region. He declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to media.
Military and police officers said they had intelligence information that militants might target a military-run school in Jammu and take students hostage.
In response, such schools had been shut and classes moved online until ater the G20 meeting, they said. Security agencies are not taking any chances in Srinagar, officers said.
Vijay Kumar, chief of police in the Kashmir Valley, said that commandos had been deployed in the city and members of a counter-terrorism force would be on stationed in various places.
Srinagar has been at the centre of insurgency by militants.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed although the violence has been reduced in recent years.
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday listed, for Aug.3, hearing on Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali’s plea challenging the trial court’s order framing charges against him in a terror funding case.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had arrested Watali in 2017 under various Sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
A division bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Talwant Singh gave time to the agency to file a reply in the mater and posted it with other connected maters for hearing in August.
Earlier, the same bench had issued a notice to the probe agency.