By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Concerned over the targeted killings in Jammu and Kashmir eight persons have been slain by gunmen since May 1 the Union home ministry will hold a meeting on Friday to take stock of the security situation in the Union Territory and also devise counter-measures to neutralise the trend.
The meeting at North Block, to be chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, will be attended by J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Intelligence Bureau Director Arvind Kumar, Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, MHA Special Secretary (Internal Security) V S K Kaumudi and other senior officials.
Ahead of the meeting, Doval met Shah separately at North Block on Thursday for an urgent discussion in the backdrop of the killings. Minister of state at the PMO Dr Jitendra Singh also attended the meeting.
Home ministry sources said that while “some” intelligence inputs indicate the targeted killings are a new modus operandi adopted by residual elements of the terrorist networks in J&K, the meeting will draw the contours of the security forces’ response.
The killing of a bank manager on Thursday hastened the decision to convene the meeting, officials said, even as the senior echelons of the national security bureaucracy will examine the gaps and shortcomings, if any, in the “security grid”.
One of the responses likely to be adopted at Friday’s meeting is the deployment of ELINT (electronic intelligence) assets and heightened vigil by security personnel.
The MHA, sources said, will not immediately take any strong measures that might turn the Valley volatile, but will adopt tactics more suited to identifying – and whenever possible – taking “hard action” against the assailants operating individually or as part of a larger group.
