The Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde has said that the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) continued to be the dominant militant groups, mostly operating from the districts of Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipore, Anantnag and Pulwama districts in Kashmir and Poonch, Ramban and Rajouri in Jammu region. This issue is being addressed from the security point of view and also taken up diplomatically with Pakistan.

He was addressing the Consultative Committee of the Members of Parliament attached to the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Members deliberated on the current security scenario, infiltration, border encounters, incidents of stone-pelting and hawala funding in detail in the state. The coordination amongst security agencies, modernisation of state police forces, visit of all-party delegation to the state, reports of interlocutors and action on these reports were also deliberated in the meeting. The issues of migrants, rehabilitation of the surrendered militants and speedy implementation of Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Programme and PM’s Package for Return and Rehabilitation of Kashmiri migrants to the state were also discussed.

The Home Minister informed that J&K has been affected by terrorist and secessionist violence, sponsored and supported from across the border for over two decades. The level of militancy, which was at its peak during the 1990s, started declining from 2003 onwards and today it is at its lowest in terms of incidents as well as causalties of the civilians and security forces. This has been made possible because of the yearning among the people of the state for peace and the successful measures taken by the security forces of the state and Central governments in restricting the infiltration of the militants from across the line of control (LoC) and various other counter-insurgency actions on all fronts.