Amit Shah arrives in Jammu on eve of CRPF Raising Day parade

Jammu, March 18 (PTI): Amid heightened security arrangements, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday reached Jammu on the eve of CRPF Raising Day parade to be held at Maulana Azad Stadium here the first time outside Delhi-NCR, its usual venue.

Shah reached the Jammu airport late in the evening and was straightway escorted to Raj Bhawan, where he is likely to chair a high-level meeting to review the security situation in the union territory, officials said.

Union Minister Jitendra Singh shared on his Twitter handle a picture of him receiving the home minister at the airport.

The officials said Singh, MP from Udhampur constituency here, was accompanied by other prominent BJP leaders, including Lok Sabha MP Jugal Kishore and the party’s Jammu and Kashmir president Ravinder Raina.

The officials said Singh, Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, top officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Jammu and Kashmir Police, officials of the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF), intelligence agencies and the civil administration are expected to take part in the security review meeting, which assumes significance in view of the recent spurt in terror activities in Kashmir.

Three Panchayat members and two security personnel were killed in separate attacks by terrorists in the Valley this month, while security forces neutralized 11 terrorists in different encounters over the past nine days.

Shah is scheduled to address the Central Reserved Police Force (CRPF) Raising day at M A Stadium on Saturday before taking stock of the developmental activities at a high-level meeting in the afternoon, the officials said.

They said the home minister is also likely to visit Kathua to meet CRPF personnel at Mahanpur, where a high security prison is being built, before returning to Delhi in the evening.

This is Shah’s second visit to Jammu and Kashmir in the past five months. The home minister had toured the union territory in October last year, his first after the Centre revoked the erstwhile state’s special status and bifurcated it into two union territories — Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh –on August 5, 2019.