Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday cautioned against wanton retributive action in the wake of a terror attack in Anantnag that killed a policeman on Wednesday, saying violence cannot be brought to an end without carrying the people along.
"I understand the anger of the police, but the Supreme Court has issued an order stating that summary action of this kind should not be taken. We witnessed a similar situation after the Pahalgam attack (in April 2025) when some people's houses were bulldozed. At that time, I had to speak to the Central government to stop the trend," Abdullah told reporters here.
The remarks followed after the authorities demolished the houses of two alleged Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists in Anantnag, hours after head constable Ashiq Hussain was shot dead in the south Kashmir district.
The houses of Adil Thokar and Haroon Rashid Ganaie, both alleged to be active terrorists, were razed to the ground on the intervening night of Wednesday-Thursday.
Constable Ashiq Hussain, who was on Amarnath Yatra security duty, was shot dead by a lone terrorist at the Lal Chowk in Anantnag on Wednesday afternoon.
Abdullah said that during the investigation into last year's Pahalgam terror attack, "it turned out that not a single local was involved and all the attackers had come from outside".
"Demolishing houses or making thousands of arrests will not improve the situation; in fact, it will only worsen it," he said.
Pointing to his previous stint as chief minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, Abdullah said that based on his experience, the cycle of violence cannot be brought to an end without taking the people along.
"We can reach a certain point using the police, Army and the CRPF, but the real end will come only when the general public stands together against such violence. After the Pahalgam incident, the general public expressed their anger and raised their voice against the terror attack. Even today, people are angry over how head constable Ashiq was brutally killed," Abdullah said.
Referring to the detention of more than a thousand over-ground workers (OGWs) across the Kashmir Valley in the aftermath of Wednesday's attack, the chief minister said when such reports come, people's anger turns against the system. "I hope we take our people along in this fight; only then will we achieve real success," Abdullah said.
While condemning the killing of Ashiq Hussain, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti also said that demolishing houses of "alleged" terrorists was "collective punishment" that has no place in a democracy.
"The killing of a police officer in the line of duty is a heinous and condemnable act. But detaining over a thousand people and demolishing the homes of families of two alleged militants amounts to collective punishment that has no place in a democracy," Mehbooba wrote on X.
If the Centre maintains that militancy has been reduced to near zero, it must adopt a more humane and lawful approach towards innocent civilians instead of resorting to "tit for tat" for an entire community, the former J-K chief minister said.
Houses of active terrorists have been demolished in Kashmir earlier as well, but the action had stopped for nearly one year due to a drop in violence levels.