Over 700 people have been detained in the last week by the Jammu and Kashmir police, in the wake of the recent killings of seven civilians in the Union territory, NDTV reported on Sunday, 10 October.
The detained persons, belonging to the Kashmiri Pandit, Sikh, and Muslim communities, hail from Srinagar, Budgam, and other regions in southern Kashmir.
Many of those detained are believed to have affiliation with the banned outfit Jamaat-e-Islami, or are suspected to be over ground workers, as per an NDTV report.
A senior police officer told NDTV that the detentions were meant to "break the chain of attacks in the (Kashmir) Valley," a rise in which has been possibly influenced by militant group Taliban's elevation to power in Afghanistan.
Recent Spate of Civilian Killings in J&K
As recently as Thursday, 7 October, two government school teachers were shot dead inside a government school by militants at the Sangam Eidgah area of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir.
The deceased included Deepak Chand, a Hindu from Jammu, who was a teacher at the school, and Supunder Kour, a Sikh, who had been the institution's principal.
On 5 October, three civilians, including a prominent local businessman Makhan Lal Bindroo, were reportedly killed by militants.
"These recent incidents of targeting civilians are to create an atmosphere of fear, communal disharmony here. This is a conspiracy to target the local ethos and defame local Kashmiri Muslims. This is being done on instructions from agencies in Pak."Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh, as quoted by news agency ANI
DG Singh said that the terror outfit, The Resistance Front (TRF), was behind the recent attacks.
(With inputs from NDTV and ANI)
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