Home minister Amit Shah to be on three-day visit to J-K from Sunday

Shah will meet the family members of the martyrs of the Jammu and Kashmir Police at Raj Bhavan in Jammu and also present appointment letters to some of them

Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir from Sunday, during which he will tour a forward post along the India-Pakistan border and review the security situation and development initiatives in the Union Territory.

Officials said Shah will reach Jammu on Sunday evening and attend a meeting of BJP MLAs and office bearers.

The next day, he will visit the BSF Border Out Post Vinay in Kathua and assess the ground situation there.

Later in the day, he will meet the family members of the martyrs of the Jammu and Kashmir Police at Raj Bhavan in Jammu and also present appointment letters to some of them selected on compassionate grounds.

On April 8, Shah will first take stock of various development programmes in the Union Territory at a meeting to be held at Raj Bhavan in Srinagar.

Subsequently, he will attend another meeting at the Raj Bhavan in Srinagar where the security situation in Jammu and Kashmir will be reviewed, officials said.

On March 21, while replying to a debate on the working of the Home Ministry in the Rajya Sabha, Shah shared data on Jammu and Kashmir and said that between 2004 and 2014, there were 7,217 terrorist incidents, but from 2014 to 2024, the number dropped to 2,242.

During this period, the total number of deaths decreased by 70 per cent, the number of civilian deaths reduced by 81 per cent and the casualties of security personnel went down by 50 per cent.

From 2010 to 2014, an average of 2,654 organised stone-pelting incidents occurred every year, but in 2024, not a single such incident occurred.

There were 132 organised strikes during 2010-14, but there has been none in 2024. In stone-pelting incidents, 112 civilians were killed, and 6,000 were injured, but now stone-pelting has completely stopped.

In 2004, there were 1,587 terrorist incidents, while in 2024, this number was reduced to just 85. In 2004, the number of civilian deaths was 733, but in 2024, it was reduced to 26, and the number of security forces' deaths dropped from 331 in 2004 to 31 in 2024, Shah had said.

The home minister had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of democracy in Kashmir while adding that the government now "deals with terrorists by shooting them between the eyes as soon as they are spotted".