Sources said the government has increased the reward money for killing A++ militants from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12.50 lakh.
According to recent reports the infiltration by militants in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has come down to zero this year and militancy has become less lethal. But the J&K government is in no mood to take it easy. They have decided to keep up the pressure on militants by increasing the cash-for-kill incentives.
Sources said the government has increased the reward money for killing A++ militants from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 12.50 lakh. Likewise the reward amount for the A+ category militant has been increased to Rs 7.50 lakh from Rs 5 lakh. For A-category militants the amount has been increased to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 3 lakh. For B-category militants it has gone up to Rs 3 lakh from Rs 2 lakh and for the C-category, the cash-for-kill incentive has gone up from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh. The reward money is released by the Jammu and Kashmir Police Headquarters to the Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) of a district where a militant has been killed, usually within a week after the killing.
The SSP then distributes the money to the team which carried out the operation. However, sources said the categorising a militant from A to A+ and from A+ to A++ is a decision taken by the Inspector General of Police (IGP).
Sources said the reward money given to the SSPs is always properly accounted for and an audit also takes place to make sure the money goes to the right people. The decision to increase the reward, according to sources, was taken during the regime of the previous Peoples Democratic Party and the BJP government. Since January 2015, 38 militants have been killed in four districts of south Kashmir. Most of these militants have been killed inside their hideouts during counter-insurgency operations lead by security forces.
The cash-for-kill incentive for security forces had come under strong criticism during the Machil fake encounter case in 2010. On the night of April 29, 2010 three youths, Shezad Ahmad (27), Riyaz Ahmad (20), and Mohammad Shafi Lone (19) of Nadihal village in North Kashmir’s Baramulla district were killed in Kalaroos village of Machil sector, Kupwara on the Line of Control (LoC) by army in a fake encounter.
The youth were lured to the LoC by former Special Police Officer (SPO) Bashir Ahmad, his associate Abdul Hameed along with a territorial army jawan Abas Shah who had promised the three men money and jobs. The former SPO and his two associates allegedly received Rs 50,000 each from the army for handing over the three youths to them.
In 2014 the army had sentenced five of its personnel, including two officers, to life imprisonment for staging the killing of the three youths in Machil
Reported India Today