India, July 24 -- More than 2,500 suspected over-ground workers (OGWs) have been reportedly detained while two houses linked to "active" Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists were demolished, following the killing of a policeman in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag, sources said on Thursday. The action came hours after head constable Ashiq Hussain, who was deployed for Amarnath Yatra security, was shot dead by a lone terrorist at Lal Chowk in Anantnag on Wednesday. Officials said the houses of Adil Thokar and Haroon Rashid Ganaie, both active LeT terrorists, were demolished during the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday as security forces launched a sweeping crackdown across the Valley.
The issue sparked a political debate, with Chief Minister Omar Abdullah cautioning against "wanton retributive action" and warning that such measures could prove counterproductive. Abdullah said he understood the anger within the police force but stressed that punitive actions such as demolishing houses and carrying out mass detentions would not help restore peace. "I understand the anger of the police, but the Supreme Court has issued an order stating that summary action of this kind should not be taken," he told reporters. Recalling a similar crackdown after the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, Abdullah said some houses had been bulldozed then as well, forcing him to intervene with the Centre to stop the practice.
He said investigations into the Pahalgam attack had later revealed that none of the attackers were local and all had come from outside Jammu and Kashmir. "Demolishing houses or making thousands of arrests will not improve the situation; in fact, it will only worsen it," the chief minister said. Drawing on his previous tenure as chief minister of the erstwhile state, Abdullah argued that security operations alone could not end militancy. "We can reach a certain point using the police, Army and the CRPF, but the real end will come only when the general public stands together against such violence," he said, adding that people across Kashmir had condemned both the Pahalgam attack and the killing of head constable Ashiq Hussain. Abdullah said reports of large-scale detentions could alienate people and turn public anger against the system instead of the perpetrators of violence. "I hope we take our people along in this fight; only then will we achieve real success," he said.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti also condemned the killing of the policeman but criticised the government's response, describing the demolition of houses belonging to "alleged" militants as "collective punishment" with no place in a democracy. In a post on X, Mufti said the killing of a police officer in the line of duty was a "heinous and condemnable act", but argued that detaining over 1,000 people and demolishing family homes amounted to collective punishment. She said that if the Centre believed militancy had been reduced to near zero, it should adopt a more humane and lawful approach towards innocent civilians instead of resorting to "tit for tat" measures against an entire community.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.