NEW DELHI: Noting that the present government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decoupled
the issues relating to the country’s internal security and its foreign policy, Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said that India wanted friendly relations with all the nations without compromising on the safety of its people and boundaries.
Delivering a lecture on ‘Security Beyond Tomorrow: Forging India’s Resilient Future’ during an event to launch ORF’s Foreign Policy Survey 2023, Shah also asserted that the Modi government has adopted zero tolerance against terrorism by bringing in major changes in terms of internal security based on concrete policies in the last 10 years.
Shah said the present regime has successfully dealt with the three internal security hotspots – ‘Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeast and the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas’ in its ten years of rule. “For long issues of India’s internal and external security were embedded under our foreign policy. But now our external and internal policy is clear. We want friendly relations with other countries. But there will be no compromise on the country’s border security and the security of its people,” Shah said, while noting that other countries have respected this policy of the Modi government.
Accusing the previous government of practicing policy of appeasement, the Home Minister said, they had created many internal security problems and perpetuated the trouble in the three security hotspots - ‘Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast and LWE affected areas’. Shah, however, asserted,“These three hotspots were successfully brought under control by the Modi government and the same areas have now been brought under India’s development journey.”
Highlighting that terrorism and insurgency have left many dead and injured, he insisted that the Modi government has not only taken action on terrorism, but its ecosystem too.
Giving an example, Shah said there were over 2,600 organised stone pelting incidents in Jammu and Kashmir prior to the Modi government coming to power and over 110 people
lost their lives and more than 6,000 people were injured due to these incidents. “But now there is not a single incident of stone pelting in Jammu and Kashmir. There is zero stone pelting,” he said.