‘Ending militancy will take time, working on it’
Srinagar, May 14: The CRPF revealed on Thursday that AFSPA is not applicable to it and that it cannot comment over whether it should continue to be scraped from Jammu and Kashmir.
“AFSPA is not applicable to us. So, I would not like to comment on this,” Director General CRPF Prakash Mishra told reporters here, adding, he is giving a proposal to the Jammu and Kashmir government for special recruitment of youth here.
“We are happy that Kashmiri youth are taking part in it (army recruitment rallies). Chief Minister is also keen that more youths should join the forces,” the DG CRPF said.
Commenting over the recent killing of two of its personnel in Anantnag district, the DG maintained that CRPF is working on changing the strategy of deployment and patrolling in order to curb the incidents of weapon-snatching by militants. “Strategy will be changed to stop weapon snatching incidents. Do not want militants to take away our weapons or that we suffer any damages in these incidents. We are working on that,” Mishra said.
He maintained that it is very difficult to rule out such incidents and that the CRPF is changing the road opening drill so that it would be able to do its job and its personnel also remain safe. He added that apart from that, CRPF is working with the state police to tackle militancy. He however, he was quick to add that such incidents cannot be stopped immediately and that it will take time.
Mishra also said that there are no inputs that militants are planning to carry out attacks on the forth coming annual Amarnath Yatra.