JOIN USSecurity in Srinagar hotels harboring protected persons put on 'extra alert'
In the backdrop of a recent attack by militants in which two municipal councillors and a cop were killed in north Kashmir’s Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday put the security personnel at hotels in Srinagar harbouring protected persons on “extra alert.”
A police spokesperson said that Srinagar police chief Sandeep Chaudhary and other senior officers of the district conducted a tour of the hotels in the city where the deployment was told to “remain extra alert”.
“More CCTV cameras and centralized surveillance of such guards is being enhanced to ensure the safety of protected persons,” he said and added the security personnel on guard were briefed to “stick to SOPs strictly and remain alert round the clock”.
After years of relative calm, militancy in Srinagar is on the rise again. Even as militants fired gunshots or lobbed grenades at some places, there was no major militant strike for over 18 months in Srinagar till May 2020. However, since then over 10 encounters between militants and security forces have been reported in Srinagar in which 20 ultras were killed.
The militants also carried several attacks on security forces, police and civilians in the city in the last year. Last year in July J&K police had claimed that no Srinagar resident was active in militancy after the killing of Lashkar-e-Toiba commander, Ishfaq Rashid Khan.
However, later the police said that Srinagar can never be free of militants till militancy is there. “They (militants) keep on coming to the city for several purposes. At times they come for medical treatment, meeting with each other and sometimes to receive funds,” Inspector General Police (IGP) Kashmir, Vijay Kumar said last year.