Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday took a jibe at the Centre’s repeated claims of normalcy in the Union Territory, saying encounters and terror-related incidents continued unabated in 2026.
His comments came as Union Home Minister Amit Shah is scheduled to begin a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir today.
Omar pointedly remarked, 'encounters are taking place even in 2026', drawing a direct connection between the abrogation of Article 370 and the persistence of violence in the UT.
During the 2019 abrogation of Article 370 in Parliament, Home Minister Amit Shah had stated that terrorism in Kashmir was a consequence of the special status and that its removal would deliver a crushing blow to separatists in the erstwhile state.
While the number and frequency of attacks have declined sharply, the intensity of incidents since 2021 has increased, particularly after terror outfits shifted tactics from the Kashmir plains to the treacherous terrain of the Pir Panjal ranges.
On Wednesday, at least three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were killed in two separate encounters in Jammu division’s Kishtwar and Udhampur districts.
Earlier, one Pakistani terrorist was killed in Kathua on January 23, while an Army paratrooper lost his life in a gunfight in Kishtwar on January 18.
“It just keeps going on. They (terrorists) were killed, fine, but where did they come from? How did they reach Udhampur? Since when were they there? And how long will this continue?” Omar asked reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
“We were told that after 2019, this cycle would end. But now, even in 2026, it has started again and is not stopping,” he added. He was responding to a question about the killing of two JeM terrorists in a two-day-long operation in the Ramnagar forest area of Udhampur district.
“On the contrary, areas that were completely free of terrorism before 2014–15 are now witnessing such incidents. So how did they reach Udhampur? Since when were they present there? Somewhere, we must get answers to these questions,” he said.
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