HT Correspondent

letterschd@hindustantimes.com

Srinagar : Two Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces in south Kashmir’s Bijbehara on Friday night, police said.

The militants, identified as Naveed Bhat alias Furqan of Qaimoh and Aaqib Yaseen Bhat of Qaimoh, were killed in Gund Baba Khalil, Sanga. Police recovered an AK 47 rifle and pistol from them.Director general of police Dilbag Singh said, “The militants killed in the encounter were affiliated with LeT. They were involved in seven cases. Both joined the militant ranks in the last two years.”

Police also arrested Hizbul Mujahideen commander Junaid Farooq Pandit of Hamray: “He was tasked with carrying out selective killings. A pistol was recovered from him.”

On Wednesday, three Hizbul Mujahideen militants, including a commander, were killed in a gunfight with security forces in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The slain militants — Jehangir Wani, Raja Maqbool and Sadat — were all locals. Wani and Maqbool were residents of Tral while Sadat was from Bijbehara, Anantnag.

On February 5, two militants of HM and LeT were killed at Lawaypora on city outskirts in a shootout with security forces, in which a CRPF man was killed.

The J&K DGP said there were 12 successful anti-militancy operations in J&K in 2020, of which 10 took place in Kashmir:“In both these places, 25 terrorists were neutralised – 21 in Kashmir and four in Jammu,” he said, adding that 240 to 250 militants are active in Kashmir. “The number of listed militants has come down.” He also said three militants had infiltrated the country this year and one of the militants was recently killed in Tral.Apart from the encounters, he said, many terror modules were also busted such as the arrest of three boys involved in the Pratap Park grenade attack, a group of grenade throwers in Sherigadi and the arrest of five persons affiliated with JeM in Srinagar.He said the police had also hit the ‘support structure of militants’ by arresting many ‘overground workers(OWGs)’: “Around 40 OGWs have been arrested. Many youngsters leave home to join terrorists. We have brought eight such youth back to their families.”

We live in an age of dwindling attention spans and shrinking public memory. So, we may have already forgotten that moment from August in 2018 when Farooq Abdullah, the patriarch of Jammu and Kashmir politics, raised both his arms and invited the audience to chant with him: “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. He was speaking at a memorial to commemorate the late Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. For raising these slogans, he was heckled by separatists when he went home to Srinagar. He stood by what he had said.

This octogenarian former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir has, in the past, also told Pervez Musharraf, the former Pakistani president, where to get off, and passionately opposed the release of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, during the hijacking of IC-814.

Whatever his other flaws may be — and like dozens of others of our elected representatives, Farooq Abdullah has many — in a state plagued by secessionist and extremist politics, you cannot accuse him of not having stood with India.

It’s now been six months since he, along with other former chief ministers, Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti, has been arrested. All three face charges under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA).

Enough has been said about the absurdity of using the PSA against prominent mainstream politicians. The dossiers against them are unconvincing, and seem hastily put together. The PSA is obviously an ex-post-facto excuse to keep them and their party workers away from political activity. In one dossier against former Peoples Democratic Party minister Naeem Akhar, the charges include criticism of the home minister Amit Shah. Omar Abdullah is considered a threat to public safety because he is able to get the vote out during the peak of militancy. And that Mehbooba Mufti was “Daddy’s girl” was considered a problem till the police chief explained that this was not part of the final official order, and such language should not have been used in police documents.

A serving government employee I met in Srinagar told me that, with the arrests, Delhi had shown the mainstream politicians “their place”. “Now everyone knows how little they matter. It’s clear that the government in Delhi can just lock them up in a cage whenever they wish.”

But that there is little mass outrage on the streets of Srinagar against the political detentions should not be an I-told-you-so moment for the BJP. In fact it should be a matter of great concern. Most ordinary Kashmirs now believe that elected representatives in the Valley have no authority— and worse — no dignity or standing in India’s political hierarchy. Even those who were once lauded by the BJP, like former civil service exam topper Shah Faesal, have been booked under the PSA. Sajad Lone, who called Narendra Modi his brother, and whose party has been an electoral ally of the BJP, was also locked away.

The Modi government may want to believe that it can foster a new Kashmir polity. But at the moment, the vacuum and messaging has only emboldened the separatists and the jihadis. The abject humiliation of those who have chosen to participate in the electoral process has left the separatists and the jihadis and their supporters with the last laugh.

This has little to do with the worthiness or performance of these leaders. And yes, there may be an element of karmic irony in the detentions, as many Kashmiris point out. The PSA, which permits detention for up to two years without trial, has been weaponised against hundreds of Kashmiris on the watch of administrations helmed by some of the detained leaders. In 2010, when the streets erupted in clashes between the paramilitary and protesters and more than a 100 young men were killed, Omar Abdullah’s government, for instance, used the PSA against more than 600 individuals.

But while that may trigger some petty schadenfreude, it does not in any way make these detentions either morally correct or politically useful from India’s point of view. The government can offer many explanations for its decisions in Kashmir— a complex history, a desire to integrate the country under one law, Pakistan’s patronage of terrorism, the misuse of social media by terror groups — but it cannot find a single rational or intelligible reason to explain the detentions of those who have sworn allegiance to the Constitution. And if, indeed, the situation on the ground has improved enough for foreign envoys to visit, how or why should anyone be scared of normal political activity, including peaceful protests against the abrogation of Article 370?

The prolonged detention of Kashmiri politicians is not just anti-democratic, it is against India’s interests. It is, to borrow from the right-wing, anti-national .

Barkha Dutt is an award-winning author and journalist

The views expressed are personal

HT Correspondent

letters@hindustantimes.co,

New Delhi : Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who laid the foundation of the Thal Sena Bhawan on Friday, said that the new complex would play a significant role in saving valuable resources and contribute to administrative efficiency, such as bringing army offices, scattered across eight pockets in the national capital, under one roof.

The Thal Sena Bhawan will come up near the army’s sprawling Manekshaw Centre in Delhi Cantonment. Spread over 39 acres, the multi-storeyed complex, which will have a constructed area of 7.5 lakh square metre, will house 6,014 offices and is expected to be built by 2024-25.

The army, which is the biggest among the three services, has been demanding a new complex for several years to accommodate its several wings scattered across the city such as the South Block, Sena Bhawan, RK Puram, the Hutments Area around Central Vista and Shankar Vihar.

The prominent offices that will shift to the new complex include the Engineer-in-Chief’s office, Territorial Army, recruitment branch, some offices of Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff, Army Welfare Housing Organisation, medical branch, National Cadet Corps, Remount and Veterinary Corps and the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme, two army officials said.

A defence ministry release quoted Singh as saying that the complex will serve as a “source of inspiration that will remind the people of the country about the sacrifices made by our soldiers”.

Addressing the soldiers, he underlined the importance of greater integration among the three services, adding that the appointment of Chief of Defence Staff and creation of Department of Military Affairs were important steps in that direction.

The release cited that the complex has been conceptualised as a multi-storeyed green building, adopting Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment norms. It will be an oval shaped complex, with eight wings. Each of the eight wings — to be separated by green spaces — will have seven floors.

“This new headquarters will be dedicated to the courage and valour of those unsung heroes of the armed forces who have sacrificed their lives for the nation,” Singh tweeted

To be sure, the Sena Bhawan, which is located near South Block, and houses key offices of the army, will continue to function from its current premises.

The new complex will help decongest the crowded Sena Bhawan. The army chief and several other senior officers, who have their offices in the South Block, will continue to work from there until the defence ministry moves out to a new location under the Central Vista redevelopment plan. In that sense, the new complex isn’t really the army’s headquarters.

HT Correspondent

letterschd@hindustantimes.com

RUPNAGAR : Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari has sought chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s intervention to address concerns of the army regarding the land allotted for construction of its proposed selection centre (north) in Rupnagar.

Tewari had earlier written a letter to defence minister Rajnath Singh regarding non-construction of the selection centre on the 203-acre land allotted in April 2012 by the previous SAD-BJP government near the campus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar.

In his reply to Tewari recently, Rajnath stated that the construction could not be carried out as the land allotted for the centre is in a low-lying area, affected by disposal of effluents from a nearby sewage treatment plant (STP).

The minister also stated that the location of the land is “administratively challenging both for candidates and the selection centre due to issues of connectivity and non-availability of a military hospital (in the area)”.

The army’s selection centre (north) is currently being run from an interim location in Kapurthala.

Talking to HT, Tewari said he has written a letter to the CM urging him to address the concerns of the army as the selection centre would be an important “economic multiplier” for the region.

He has also suggested that if the army is no longer interested in setting up the selection centre in Rupnagar, the land should be offered for setting up a second All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the state.

Hitender Rao

hrao@hindustantimes.com

Chandigarh : Armed forces personnel in Haryana will have to shell out more for their drink with the state government deciding to hike the excise duty for liquor sold through the canteen stores department (CSD) from April 1.

As per the 2020-21 excise policy approved by the council of ministers on Thursday, the excise levies for liquor sold to armed forces personnel will increase in the range of 5% to 36% for different kinds of alcoholic drinks.

The excise duty for rum, arguably the most popular drink among defence personnel, has been hiked by around 36%. The levy on rum in 2019-20 excise policy was reduced by around 48%.

The tax in form of assessment fee on imported foreign liquor (IFL, bottled in origin) has been increased by around 15%.

Low alcohol content beverages such as beer and wine will also get costlier for armed forces personnel from the next fiscal as the excise levy on them has been increased by 11-12.5%. Similarly, ready to drink beverages will also get expensive due to a 10% hike in excise duty.The excise duty for Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) has been increased by around 5%.

Since the excise duty levied by the Chandigarh administration for CSD liquor is way low, the comparatively cheap liquor may attract a lot of defence clientele from neighbouring Haryana. The CSD liquor in Punjab, however, is costlier than Haryana.

New retail license introduced

The state government has introduced a new retail license for the sale of imported foreign liquor (bottled in origin) called L-2BF. The new license, available for retail outlets of IMFL and bar licensees, will be granted on a fixed fee.

The license, in the form of L-2BF, shall be granted mandatorily to certain earmarked retail outlets of IMFL at a fixed price, which will be determined in accordance with the potential of the vends. The license fee of such retail outlets of IMFL shall be displayed in the excise arrangement separately and will be over and above the tender amount of a vend. Each such L-2BF shall be granted a minimum quota of IFL (bottled in origin) in terms of cases of whisky, beer and wine.