‘Terrorists, Maoists threatening human rights, have to be dealt with firmly’

New Delhi, June 22: Union Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said while “jehadis and Maoists” were threatening the rights of citizens, but human rights organisations “taken over by the ultra-left” never spoke of this. The Minister said that terrorists had to be dealt with firmly to protect human rights of ordinary citizens. “To deal with a killer is also a law and order issue. It can’t wait a political solution. A fidayeen is willing to die. He is also willing to kill... When he advances to kill, should the security forces ask him to sit on a table and have dialogue with them.

He said there were primarily two ideological groups involved in insurgency and terrorism — ‘jehadis’ and the separatists trained and actively financed by Pakistan, and the Maoists active primarily in some of the tribal districts in central India, alleging that a “visible coordination” between the two was becoming more and more apparent. “Both these groups want to overthrow constitutionally elected governments - they abhor democracy. They use violence as a means of impacting a political change. In the system that they perceive, there is no democracy, no elections, no equality, no free speech and no guarantee of life and liberty. “On the contrary, most of them believe that power flows from the barrel of the gun. They indulge in large scale violence, killing of innocents and sabotage the development activity for public welfare. The jehadis believe that there is space for only one religion and the Maoists believe that there is space for none,” Jaitley wrote.

The minister said the terrorists and the jehadis were threatening the human rights of the citizens in Jammu and Kashmir. “The entire Kashmiri pandit community has been banished from the state. Initially spared but after the Chittisinghpura massacre in 2000, most of the Sikh community has moved out,” he said, adding that most of the people left in the valley now belonged to the majority community of the state.

Meanwhile, Maoists don’t allow any development activity in tribal regions, he said. “They kill innocent tribals who don’t agree with them; they destroy public buildings; they kill security personnel and they even charge a parallel tax from helpless citizens.” (IANS)