Amit Shah commends post-Article 370 transformation in J-K

SRINAGAR — Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said that after Article 370 abrogation, the Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory has witnessed a massive reformation in all sectors of life. He hailed PM Modi’s efforts of curbing ‘terrorism’ and paving the way to peace and normalcy in the region.

Shah was speaking at the e-bus inaugural ceremony held at Jammu. Shah who addressed the gathering virtually was attended by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and other top officials of police and civil administration.

He said since the abrogation of Article 370, the J&K has seen a new phase of peace and development. “Article 370 was used as a shield by political leaders to continue to politics based on lies. They were saying that abrogation of Article 370 won’t impact J&K affairs, but today everything is visible. Law and order have entirely changed, stone pelting ended, strikes over,” he added.

He hailed the measures taken by PM Narendra Modi in Jammu and Kashmir for peace, prosperity and upliftment of all sections of the society. He said PM Modi has done a praiseworthy job by ending ‘terrorism’ and separatism in J&K. “PM also curbed terror funding channels that were inciting people against the government. Further many groups who had terrorist ideology were banned for the larger interest of the country and its people,” he said.

He congratulated the aspirants who received appointment letters during the function and appealed to them to set their direction with commitment and determination as they started a new journey of life.

Home Minister, while taking a dig at local political leaders for making J&K a hub of corruption in their regimes, said, “Earlier jobs were given through Parchi (recommendation) instead of merit, but today there is no room for corruption and you have achieved this milestone through your merit.”

He hailed Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha’s efforts in J&K, saying the way LG Sinha is dealing with the situation and making efforts to slash down the figure of unemployment, the day is not far when we will be able to complete the backlog figure.

“After 370 abrogation, 34,440 posts were filled in Jammu & Kashmir, out of which 24,000 were of defence, 3900 for civil, 2637 in police, and 2436 in bank,” Home Minister said and added, “No corruptive practice was used in filling these posts.”

He said the J&K Government is taking every possible step to contain practices of corruption and in this regard, the authorities have kept services online to ensure corruption-free transactions. “Earlier only 60 services were online but today there are over 1100 services that have been kept online to root out corruption practices in government departments,” he said.