Jammu & Kashmir cops play key role in dialogue efforts: Mehbooba Mufti

SRINAGAR: Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said that the state police has the most important role in making the Centre’s latest dialogue initiative a success. “If you want to end militancy, you have to play a positive role in creating an environment for reconciliation. You have the most important role to make this process initiated by the Prime Minister and home minister a success,” Mufti said on Wednesday.

The remarks were seen as an attempt to avoid any major law and order situation in the coming months, which can spoil the efforts of the Centre’s newly appointed interlocutor for J&K, Dineshwar Sharma. She urged the police not to imitate actions of militants and to exercise maximum restraint while dealing with the law and order situation.

“I should not get any complaint from anywhere that the police or any other security force group ransacked houses of civilians. It should not happen. You are not militants. You are believers and custodians of law and cannot act like a militant,” Mufti said, while commemorating the sacrifices made by the security forces in the past one year.

The chief minister’s advice to the police came in the wake of recent incidents of security forces ransacking houses of the families of militants in southern Kashmir, after the gunmen attacked several policemen and members of the ruling and opposition political parties. Hizb-ul-Mujahideen operational commander Riyaz Naikoo along with other gunmen barged into the houses of a few PDP workers in southern Kashmir recently.