Jammu, Mar 11: Director General of Police Kuldeep Khoda Friday said that a ‘joint strategy’ has been adopted by the state police in coordination with other security agencies to ensure peaceful summer in Kashmir Valley this year. “We will ensure that nothing goes wrong this year and people go by their normal life without any trouble,” he said.
The Police chief, however, described summer 2011 as ‘biggest challenge’ for law enforcing agencies and asserted that necessary measures have been put in place to stop unrest.
“We are laying emphasis on non-lethal means to control protests but if the protests are engineered and take a violent form, we will have to use force,” Khoda told reporters in the lawns of Assembly here.
“It is the biggest challenge for us but we are determined to ensure a peaceful summer this year. But if there is any law and order problem it will be dealt effectively,” he maintained.
The DGP said there were "some vested elements who are out to trigger violence, demonstration and protests".
He said the prime concern of the security agencies will be to ensure violence free summer. “We want that businessmen, traders do not suffer and tourism gets boost as it has already suffered too much due to previous year’s unrest,” he maintained.
Khoda said that state police is procuring non-lethal weapons which are being manufactured as per state government’s recommendations and modifications, to control protests and to ensure minimum loss of human lives while dealing with law and order problem. The Police chief said that a high level team including Chief Secretary and Home Secretary of the state visited the BSF Academy Tekinpore in Haryana to inspect non-lethal weapons including teargas shells, stun grenades and laser guns. “The non-lethal weapons, which we are procuring from there, are being manufactured as per the modifications recommended by the team,” he maintained.
Khoda said the killing of Jaish-e-Muhammad chief in Srinagar yesterday, is a major breakthrough for police. He said Sajjad Afghani was a Pakistani and was active in Sopore town for the last 10 years.
Over 115 civilians were killed and over 3000 wounded in police and paramilitary CRPF action while dealing with protests in Kashmir last summer.
Referring to wages of SPOs, Khoda said, "The government has already sent a proposal for increasing their wages" and 30000 vacancies of SPOs have been sanctioned to J&K.

Lastupdate on : Fri, 11 Mar 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 11 Mar 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 12 Mar 2011 00:00:00 IST