Govt denies rise in terror activities

New Delhi, Apr 30 (UNI) The Government today denied that extremist and anti-national activities were on the rise in the country, saying there was an improvement in the situation in Jammu and Kashmir and the North East.

In written reply to questions in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said while in Tripura and Meghalaya the situation has improved considerably, Assam, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland coordinated measures have been taken to check and control activities of militant groups.

''In naxal affected areas also the overall level of extremist violence has more or less remained at a similar level in the last few years and has in fact shown improvement in a number of areas but for a few major incident in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand,'' he added.

He said during February-March this year 18 civilians were killed in Jammu and Kashmir compared to 26 people in the corresponding period last year.

''Only 98 terror-related incidents occurred in Jammu and Kashmir during February-March this year against 137 last year for the same period,'' he added.

The Minister said the Central and State agencies are maintaining coordination and a large number of terrorist modules have been busted and possible terror incident averted.

The Centre is supplements the efforts of the state government and resources by various measures, including enhanced intelligence sharing and strengthening border management, he added.

He said 400 terrorists were arrested in Jammu and Kashmir during 2007 against 429 in 2006, 1837 from the North East in 2006 compared to 1406 in 2007 and 1240 from naxal-affected states in 2006 and 1448 during 2007.

''Besides, during 2006 and 2007 more than 250 militants are reported to have been arrested in the hinterland,'' he added.

The Government has been constantly taking up issue of cross-border terrorism with Pakistan in bilateral meetings, he said.

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