Task force to ‘weed out anti-nationals’ in govt jobs in J&K

The Jammu and Kashmir government has constituted a Special Task Force (STF) for identifying and scrutinizing its employees involved in any activity detrimental to the security of the country or deemed as anti-national.

The Union Territory’s general administration department (GDA) has issued an order giving sanction for the constitution of an STF which would be authorised to identify and scrutinize cases of government employees found involved in such activity and refer these to the government for action against them in terms of provisions of Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution of India.

Additional director-general of police (CID) has been nominated as chairperson of the committee which will have inspectors-general of police from Jammu and Kashmir Valley, representatives of home, law, justice member and parliamentary affairs and those of the concerned department of the employee under scrutiny as members.

“The terms of reference of the special task force shall be to scrutinise cases of employees suspected of activities requiring action under Article 311(2)(c) of the Constitution of India,” the order says. The STF will, as per the order, engage with other members of the terror monitoring group (TMG) for identifying such other employees, as necessary. It will also avail the assistance of other law enforcement and intelligence agencies and departments, if warranted, towards completing probes in a time-bound manner, the official sources said.

The GAD order reads that the STF “shall speedily scrutinize such cases in a time-bound manner and shall be serviced by the criminal investigation department”.

The J&K government has, while pursuing a tough policy against what it sees as their antinational activities and violation of Government Servants Conduct Rules, sacked a large number of its employees over a period of time. These rules lay down that no government servant shall take part in, subscribe in aid of, or assist in any way, any political movement in the country or relating to its affairs.

In October 2016, 12 government employees were fired on charges of being involved in anti-national activities which included fuelling the unrest in the erstwhile state after the killing of Hizb-ulMujahideen commander Burhan Wani. Some of the sacked officials were subsequently detained under J&K’s stringent Public Safety Act (PSA) which allows a person to be jailed for three months to two years without formal trial being initiated against him or her.