Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday said the controversial Armed Forces Special Power Act will be removed from Jammu & Kashmir once permanent peace returns to the Union Territory while asserting that in case of a need India won’t hesitate to take action against the terrorists across the border.
Addressing a security conclave in Jammu, he said, “The AFSPA has been removed from large parts of the Northeast. I am waiting for the day when permanent peace will come in Jammu & Kashmir and AFSPA will be removed from here, too.”
The defence minister, however, didn’t give any timeline for the removal of the AFSPA from J&K.
In 2011, when Omar Abdullah was chief minister of the erstwhile state of J&K, he had pitched for the withdrawal of the contentious law.
Then-Union home minister P Chidambaram found nothing wrong with Omar’s move to remove the AFSPA. However, then-defence minister A K Antony had differed with Omar and Chidambaram over the issue saying “there should be no hasty decision on the AFSPA removal”.
Territorial sovereignty
On the security scenario near India’s disputed boundary with China, Singh without naming the communist country said India would never compromise any change in its territorial sovereignty.
Rejecting contentions on India facing major challenges near the LAC, he said Beijing breached the agreed protocols between the two countries in the Galwan Valley and intruded, “but brave Indian soldiers defeated their designs.”
Referring to surgical strikes carried out across the border in 2016 and the Balakot air strike in 2019, Singh said the Modi government took major action against terrorism.
“Bharat ab pehle jaisa Bharat nahi raha. Bharat takatwar banta jaa raha hai. Zaroorat padi to Bharat seema ke iss par bhi maar sakta hai aur zaroorat padi toh uss paar bhi jaa sakta hai (India is not the same as it used to be. It is getting more powerful. If needed, India can hit on this side of the border and can go across the border as well),” he said.
The Jammu conclave is being dubbed as “a totally non-political event” by J&K BJP, which is organising it as a part of the party’s month-long “Maha Jan Sampark Abhiyan” to mark the completion of nine years of the Modi government.
Zero tolerance
Without naming Pakistan, he said that the countries using terrorism as their state policy would not succeed in their nefarious designs. “Terrorists and their supporters should now understand that terrorism is unacceptable by India,” Singh said.
“India has zero tolerance against terrorism. Pakistan should put its house in order first rather than sponsoring terror from its territory. The terrorism networks, terrorism funding, supply of drugs and arms and over and underground terrorism has been dismantled in J&K,” Singh said.