Mehbooba Mufti offers double reward for militant surrender

Mehbooba Mufti-led Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to incentivise the surrender policy by doubling the reward money for the security forces men who can motivate local militants to give up arms during encounters or otherwise in the strife-torn state.

"If a local militant is ready to drop weapons in the encounter or before and wants to come home, whatever reward you get, I will give you the double of that. We should always try hard (to motivate militants to surrender),"Mehbooba said.

Under the current policy, security forces are entitled for reward money after eliminating the militants in the encounters. For instance, Rs 12.5 5 lakh is given as cash reward for killing the A ++ category militant. Meanwhile, for killing A+ category militants, security forces receive Rs 7.5 lakh as cash reward. A, B and C category carry the bounty of Rs five lakh, Rs three lakh and Rs one lakh respectively.

Strongly pitching for winning hearts and minds of local people, Mehbooba said killing militants is easy, but eradicating militancy is very difficult. "If you want to root out militancy, you shall have to win the hearts of people, you shall have to take people along. If you think, you will make people angry and militancy will be eradicated…by killing four, eight, 50 or 100 — it is not going to happen," she said.

Sources said around 65 local militants have been motivated to surrender/arrest in the current year so far. More than 168 militants have been killed by the security forces in different anti militancy operations across Kashmir this year so far. Sixty four security men too have lost their lives in the line of duty this year so far.

The CM also noted that militants might copy police and wear commando uniform, but they cannot be like them. "You are the defenders of law they are not. No doubt, they dress like you, hold weapons in hand, but there is a marked difference," she said.