Violence hotspots in Udhampur, Kathua to vote amid enhanced security measures

Rajouri, Sep 30: With voting under the third and final phase of assembly elections in J&K to take place on Tuesday, security forces and the official machinery have extended their concentration on new violence-hit areas of Udhampur and Kathua districts where several attacks and encounters have taken place in the last couple of months.

The focussed areas include Machedi, Bani, and Bilawar areas in Kathua district and Dudu and Basantgarh areas in Udhampur district.

These areas share boundaries in remote corners of Udhampur & Kathua districts.

Several attacks and encounters occurred in these remote areas during the last couple of months including Saturday's encounter at Kog in Bilawar, Kathua in which a Head Constable of J&K Police lost his life, a DySP, and an ASI got injured while a militant was killed by the security forces.

Five Army personnel lost their lives in a deadly ambush on an Army bus in a remote area of Kathua district on July 8 while around 10 such related incidents happened in the last six months.

The emergence as well as sudden spike of violence-related activities in these remote areas of Kathua and Udhampur districts created a security situation that is being monitored by higher levels of security forces including the Union Home Ministry.

Officials said that several measures to upgrade security setup in these remote pockets and to expedite counter-militancy operations have been taken.

On Tuesday, these violence-affected areas of Udhampur and Kathua districts will go to polls in the third and final phase of J&K assembly polls.

The Dudu and Basantgarh areas of Udhampur fall under the Ramnagar assembly constituency while the violence-affected areas of Kathua district fall under the Billawar assembly constituency.

Officials said that adequate security arrangements had been put in place in all the areas falling in these violence-hit pockets to ensure smooth, peaceful, and incident-free voting.

They said that all these areas, despite the tough terrain, have always witnessed good and healthy voter turnout.

The officials said that all the security forces including the J&K Police, CAPFs, and Army have worked on a joint security plan to ensure adequate area domination before the polls followed by tight security arrangements on the day of voting with the main focus on tight security of all the polling locations and polling teams.

Senior officers are personally and closely monitoring the arrangements of security in these areas where a situation of security concern has erupted especially after the Kag encounter.