NEW DELHI: A day after Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad shared statistics to drive home the argument that more militants have been killed under the NDA, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah stated that the statement amounted to an admission that violence has returned to the Valley.
Slamming Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, Prasad had given out statistics to argue that more militants have been neutralised in the Kashmir Valley since 2014 than the erstwhile Congress-led UPA government at the Centre.
“Actually minister sahib this tells the story of how your government allowed militancy and violence to re-emerge in J&K forcing the security forces to kill more terrorists. You should be embarrassed by these statistics not be claiming them as some achievement (sic),” Abdullah tweeted.
Incidentally, the Union Minister on Friday had slammed Azad’s purported claims that more civilians are being killed than terrorists.
“Against 72 in 2012 and 67 in 2013, militant casualties stood at 110 in 2014, 108 in 2015, 150 in 2016, and 217 in 2017. Besides, 75 militants were killed up to June 2018,” Prasad had told reporters at the BJP headquarters at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. Later, Prasad posted the statistics on Twitter, with claims “this is the story of efforts made during the UPA and NDA regimes to fight terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir”.
The Union Minister had also demanded an explanation from Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi on the statement of Azad.