Row Over J&K Top Cop’s Remark On Regional Parties, Pak Infiltration In Kashmir; Mehbooba Seeks His Removal – News18

Director General of Police RR Swain has said Pakistan had infiltrated all important aspects of civil society in Jammu and Kashmir when it was in the grip of militancy, with mainstream parties cultivating leaders of terror networks for political gains.

Addressing students at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Jammu, he said it had become normal for local leaders to visit the homes of killed terrorists and sympathise with their victims in public, Swain said.

His comments invited sharp criticism from regional party leaders. They not only called his speech ‘scripted’ but also sought his removal.

“Pakistan successfully infiltrated all important aspects of civil society, thanks to so-called mainstream or regional politics in the valley. There is ample evidence to show that many had mastered the art of running with the hare and hunting with the hound, which left both the common man and the security forces bewildered, frightened, and confused,” he said.

Swain said that while it was allowed to eliminate recruits in terrorism, those responsible for recruitment and arranging (terror) finances were never investigated.

The DGP said Jamiat-i-Islami provided religious and ideological justification to the terrorists.

“It was an open secret that the Jamiat network was not only able to sabotage the government efforts to normalise the situation but also had a terror finance network that played a big role in mobilising street protests,” he said.

The party, he said, vilified everything about the Indian state, and its armed forces, as a part of a “deliberate and systematic equation based on false narratives, half-truths, out-of-context presentation of facts.” “SP rank officers were arrested and put in jails alongside terrorists, for crimes they had never committed. The accidental drowning of two girls, Neelofar and Asiya, in Shopian in 2014 was allowed to be hijacked by narrative terrorism, which held the valley to ransom with several weeks of hartals, arson, and rioting,” he said.

The officer claimed that a detailed investigation by the CBI, which was verified by AIIMS forensics, proved beyond doubt that it was an outright falsehood.

“It was an accident. Things had come to such a pass that the so-called mainstream political parties had started cultivating leaders of terror networks and sometimes directly to further their electoral prospects,” he said.

He said that it is due to some top-level policy-making which has led the people now into believing that “political and economic opportunities” will no longer be the prerogative of a privileged few.

“This is one reason why districts are looking calm,” Swain said.

J&K leaders react

Responding to the police official’s statement, PDP chief Mhebooba Mufti said, “In the last six years there has been the BJP narrative. Everything is under their control. Even hurriyat leaders are behind the bars. Then what are they doing here? What have done in the last six years? Now they want to hide their failure behind the regional parties. He should be sacked.”

Jammu and Kashmir People’s Conference (JKPC) leader Sajad Lone also responded to the top police official’s comments and said, “The comments made by the DG J and K police pertaining to mainstream parties are inappropriate to say the least. Even in a basic, rudimentary functioning democracy such utterances by a serving police officer would not have been tolerated.”

He added, “Such statements by serving officers are an indication of the disdain and contempt for anything remotely pertaining to democracy. Such sad state of affairs and even sadder is the fact that the script writers of this sad state of affairs take pride in having brought J and K to this level.”

(With PTI inputs)