The police authorities in Jammu & Kashmir have described year 2018 as a successful period against terrorism recording killing of over 250 terrorists and 45 security personnel.
Talking to mediapersons, Director General of Police Dilbagh Singh said that year 2018 was a mixed bag of good and bad happenings.
Singh said that around 93 encounters with terrorists occurred during the year 2018 where 87 of them were concluded without any collateral damage. He said 252 terrorists (including Pakistanis) were killed during the previous year which is success to the counter terrorism grid.
Statistics compiled suggest that 106 civilians were killed in year 2018 that includes those youth who were part of protests near gunfight sites trying to disrupt counter-terrorist operations, at various places in south and other areas in Kashmir.
“The sad part is we lost around 90 security personnel also, half of them killed by terrorists brutally and they made these killings public through videos on social media,” Singh said. He said 45 personnel of J&K police, 09 CRPF and 30 Army personnel were killed.
Dilbagh said that 44 civilians were also killed by terrorists. In reply to a question, DGP said that cross border infiltration was still going on as major infiltration attempts were made in year 2018. He said all possible measures were being taken to stop infiltration of terrorists from across the border.
He acknowledged that a large number of youths joined terrorists. He said that most of them were killed during encounters.
In reply to a question, DGP said that there is no substantial presence of ISIS in Kashmir. He, however, said that attempts were being made to radicalise Kashmiri Muslim youths to tread extreme path leading to extremism.