Departing from the relatively muted response to the August 5 anniversary of the revocation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir over the last two years, several Union Ministers took to Twitter to mark the third year of the event on Friday.
Among those who posted tweets included the official handle of the Jammu and Kashmir Police which ferreted out data on security situation in the Union Territory before and after August 5, 2019.
The special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution was revoked by the Parliament on August 5, 2019 and the former State was split into two Union Territories — Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
In the past two years, the government has maintained a measured silence on the issue avoiding any major events or social media blitzkrieg. An official said Union ministers who were sent in batches to the newly created Union Territory in the past two years were asked to focus and speak only on issues of development.
Piyush Goyal’s video clip
On Friday, Commerce minister Piyush Goyal shared a 1.50-minute video clip that included an interview of Bhavna Thakar, a BJP member from Gujarat, where she reminisces a song by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 1990s to keep them motivated in their fight against Article 370.
“The official Twitter handle of Kashmir Police also joined the bandwagon by posting a message on “Security Scenario in Kashmir: Pre/Post Abrogation of Art-370.”
The data showed that from August 5, 2016-August 4, 2019 the number of law-and-order incidents reported in the Valley stood at 3,686 while 438 such incidents were reported from August 5, 2019-August 4, 2022. The post-2019 period includes the COVID-19 affected years of 2020 and 2021.
The number of security personnel and civilians killed in terror incidents in the past three years stands at 174 and 110 respectively against 290 and 191 in the previous three years.
On the high number of civilians still being killed, Vijay Kumar, Additional Director General of Police, Kashmir Range, told The Hindu, “The number of civilians killed in terror incidents is on a decline. Once total number of terrorists in Kashmir come down below 50, number of civilian killings will certainly decrease.”
When asked about the motivation behind Kashmir Police releasing the comparative data from their official handle, Mr. Kumar said, “Several journalists had been asking comparative data of last three years, so we shared on Twitter.”
Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai retweeted a post by the BJP’s official handle which said “Modi government made the dream of one nation, one mark, one legislation, one head come true. On August 5, 2019, by abrogating Article 370 and Article 35A from Jammu and Kashmir, the State was included in the mainstream along with the entire country.” He also retweeted a post by @themodistory that first shared the ‘Jaago Bharat ke Lal’ rendition. The verified account followed by several BJP members and Home Minister Amit Shah says that it is an initiative to bring forward Mr. Modi’s inspiring life story.
The official account of BJP had last year on the occasion, shared 19 tweets on several development initiatives taken in Jammu and Kashmir.
Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy shared a clip of Mr. Shah’s August 5, 2019 speech in the Rajya Sabha on Twitter to say that “the place where Mukherjee was martyred, that Kashmir is ours.”
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was BJP’s founding father. “It was the iron will of PM Shri @NarendraModi ji that delivered on the promise of ‘One Nation, One Constitution,’” Mr. Reddy said.
This was in sharp contrast to his August 5 tweet a year ago when he said, “On this day 2 years ago, a new era of Development, Peace & Prosperity was ushered in by the @narendramodi Government to J&K, with the abrogation of Article 370.”
Personnel Minister Jitendra Singh also shared the ‘Jaago Bharat ke Lal’ song on his Twitter timeline in addition to a speech he made in the Rajya Sabha in 2019 when the J&K Reorganisation Act was taken up for consideration.
