The Centre has achieved a 94-per cent conviction rate in terror financing cases and there is a significant decline in terror incidents in Jammu and Kashmir due to actions of the armed forces, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur said on Monday. “An era of peace has dawned in the Northeast since 2014 — insurgency-related violence has seen a sharp decline of 80% and civilian deaths have seen an 89% drop,” he claimed. He also mentioned the “achievement of surrender by 6,000 militants since 2014”. On counter-terrorism, Thakur said while the government has worked on the legal front by strengthening the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, it took steps at the enforcement level by giving National Investigation Agency (NIA), the premier investigation agency to probe terror-related cases, a truly federal structure by introducing the NIA (Amendment) Act. The collective effect of these measures, he said, has been the “weakening of the terror ecosystem”. Thakur said the government is “committed to go beyond armed action to counter terrorism and has worked to create an atmosphere of lasting peace” across the Northeast. Noting the peace agreements inked since 2014 — the Bodo Accord in January 2020, Bru-Reang Agreement in January 2020, NLFT-Tripura Agreement in August 2019, Karbi Anglong Agreement in September 2021, and Assam-Meghalaya Inter-State Boundary Agreement in March 2022 — he called these a “legacy of the government's achievements”. On the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Thakur said its rollback has been only a matter of discussion all this while but the Narendra Modi government withdrew it from a large part of the Northeast, including the whole of Tripura and Meghalaya. “It remains in force in only three districts of Arunachal Pradesh. Sixty per cent of Assam is free of AFSPA, 15 police stations under six districts have been taken out of the category of disturbed area, (and) disturbed area notification has been removed from 15 police stations in the seven districts,” he said. On rescuing Indians in distress from across the world, the minister said 22,500 citizens were rescued under Operation Ganga in February-March 2022, 670 Indian citizens were rescued from Afghanistan in Operation Devi Shakti. “In one of the biggest successes of rescue operations, 1.83 crore citizens were brought back home during Covid-19 crisis under the Vande Bharat Mission in 2021-22. India rescued 654 people from Wuhan in China,” he said. India has also offered a helping hand to foreign citizens under distress, he added. “In 2016, under Operation Sankat Mochan, 155 people, including two Nepalese citizens, were brought back from South Sudan; 5,000 Indians were rescued from Nepal during Operation Maitree, and 170 foreign nationals were also rescued from Nepal. Operation Rahat 6,710 people were rescued from Yemen including 1,962 foreigners,” he said. According to Thakur, India is increasingly being seen as a country that readily offers assistance to other nations in their times of crises, and also as one that acts strongly against terrorism, while “a neighbouring country” is only seen as one sheltering terrorism and propounding values of violence. According to the 2021-22 annual report of the Home Ministry, NIA has registered 438 cases as on March 31 this year since its inception. Out of these, charge sheets have been filed in 349 cases; trials concluded in 89 cases, of which “83 cases have resulted in conviction”, the report said. Recently, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai had informed Rajya Sabha that 123 terror incidents were reported in Jammu and Kashmir until November 30 this year. This is down from 279 “incidents of terror violence reported in 2017, 417 in 2018, 255 in 2019, 244 in 2020, and 229 in 2021,” as per the MHA report.
