{"id":13815,"date":"2018-12-25T18:30:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T13:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=13815"},"modified":"2018-12-25T18:30:08","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T13:00:08","slug":"to-prevent-civilian-killings-govt-asks-security-forces-to-fine-tune-its-encounter-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=13815","title":{"rendered":"To prevent civilian killings, Govt asks security forces to fine-tune its encounter strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong><i>\u2018Will take steps to ensure there is no collateral damage during gunfights<\/i><\/strong><i>\u2019<\/i><\/h2>\n<p><strong><i>Srinagar, Dec 25:<\/i><\/strong><i> As the recent killing of seven civilians at the encounter spot in village Sirnoo in Pulwama district evoked wide-spread anger triggering a debate whether the standard operating procedures (SoP) of forces was faulty, security grid of Kashmir have started fine-tuning its encounter strategy to prevent repeat of Pulwama incident.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>Reliable sources revealed to Kashmir News Service (KNS) that forces were \u2018reprimanded\u2019 by the Governor S P Malik and his security advisor Vijay Kumar for the seven civilian killings at the encounter spot at village Sirnoo where three local militants were also killed.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>On Friday last, three local militants and seven civilians including a teenager and a MBA graduate were killed in at Sirnoo during an encounter. Forces said that the encounter took place in an open field, where youth from all directions tried to march towards the \u201cspot where militants were cornered\u201d and in the heavy exchange of firing seven civilians got killed.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>However, while on one hand, the killing of seven civilians triggered a three-day long shutdown in Kashmir amid protests, the Governor Malik asked forces to follow the SOP in true letter and spirit besides \u201cstreamlining their synergy while engaging themselves in counter insurgency operations.\u201d Governor\u2019s advisor Vijay Kumar too chaired a meeting in Jammu and passed similar directions to the forces: \u201cFollow the SoP to ensure civilian causalities don\u2019t occur.\u201d<\/i><br \/>\n<i>A source said that all the security agencies have been in a huddle since past many days to \u201cfind out what went wrong in Sirnoo.\u201d<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cIt has unanimously been decided that the law and order component will be further strengthened to deal with the protesters who try to inch closer to the encounter sites in a bid to help militants flee,\u201d the source said. \u201cAll the measures will be taken to fine tune the SOPs, to prevent collateral damage.\u201d<\/i><br \/>\n<i>A top police officer confirmed that police, CRPF and the army top officials have held a series of meetings to fine-tune the SoPs just to ensure no civilian causality takes place during counter insurgency operations.<\/i><br \/>\n<i>\u201cVarious layers of cordons will be further strengthened to ensure zero collateral damage. As far as blowing up of houses is concerned, forces only resort to that when there is a firing from the other side,\u201d he said, wishing anonymity. (KNS)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u2018Will take steps to ensure there is no collateral damage during gunfights\u2019 Srinagar, Dec 25: As the recent killing of seven civilians at the encounter spot in village Sirnoo in Pulwama district evoked wide-spread anger triggering a debate whether the standard operating procedures (SoP) of forces was faulty, security grid of Kashmir have started fine-tuning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13814,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-union-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}