Pak unhappy with peace in valley: Lt Gen Raju

88 militants killed, 240 terrorist associates and OGWS arrested in J&K this year: DGP

SRINAGAR: People of Kashmir took the scrapping of Article 370 in a "positive manner" as there was relative peace for a long time but Pakistan is on a "hyperdrive" on peddling a false narrative to keep the pot boiling in the valley, a top army officer said on Monday.

"Starting from the situation post abrogation of Article 370, I think the population took the decision in a positive manner. We saw relative peace for a fairly long period of time," Lt Gen B S Raju, heading the strategic XV corps, told reporters in Awantipora, 33 km from here.

Flanked by General Officer Commanding of Army's South Kashmir based Victor Force Major General Asengupta and Inspector General of CRPF, Gen Raju, who was talking to media following killing of nine militants in two encounters in Shopian district in less than 24 hours, said normalcy was almost back in the valley by February this year.

"January-february people had begun to move around, schools had opened up, winter tourism had commenced in Gulmarg. So we were seeing all signs of normalcy before the issue of COVID-19 came in and we had to go into another round of lockdown .... only to save lives," he added.

Gen Raju said Pakistan was "not happy" with the peaceful situation in the valley. "Pakistan is unhappy because it is in its larger plan to keep the pot boiling in the valley. That is how the relevance of the Pakistan army remains within Pakistan.

People of Kashmir took Art 370 scrapping positively, says Lt General Raju

As far as Pakistan's contribution to violence here is concerned, it is a combination of two things -- on the physical front inducting weapons along the Line of Control and, the second is, the information warfare Pakistan intends to fight," he said.

Meanwhile, Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh on Monday said 88 militants, including a number of top commanders, were killed and 280 others arrested so far in the Union Territory this year.

Twenty-two of the militants, including six top commanders, were killed in the past two weeks, dealing a major blow to Pakistan and its agencies that are making all-out efforts to escalate violence by pushing a large numbers of militants from across the border, Singh said.

“Our strategy to counterPakistan is two-pronged, which is to stop infiltration along the Line of Control (LOC) and the International Border (IB) and tackle those who are active in the hinterland, besides stopping local youth from joining terror ranks. Thankfully, we are successful to a large extent in this endeavour,” he told reporters here.

Referring to the killing of nine Hizbul Mujahideen militants in two back-to-back successful operations in the past 24 hours in Shopian district of South Kashmir, the police chief said the effort of the security forces is to control and wipe out terrorism from Jammu and Kashmir.