Demonstrators hold placards as they raise slogans against terrorism in Kashmir

New Delhi: Hours after a Hindu bank employee was killed in Kashmir, Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting of top officials, including National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and RAW chief Samnat Goel today. They are believed to have discussed the security situation in the UT which has witnessed a spate of targeted killings since May.

The deliberations came a day ahead of Friday’s high-level meeting convened by Shah to discuss the security situation in J&K. Doval along with Goel closeted with Shah for over an hour at the Home Minister’s office at North Block this afternoon, official sources said. Details of the meeting were not known immediately but they were believed to have discussed the situation in restive Kashmir where the bank employee hailing from Rajasthan was killed this morning. Late in the evening, terrorists shot dead a labourer from Bihar and injured another from Punjab.

Scores of Kashmiri Pandits, who were employed under a PM’s package in 2012, have been staging continuous protests threatening mass exodus since the killing of Rahul Bhat, who was shot dead by terrorists on May 12 in Chadoora area of Budgam.

The high-level meeting on Friday, to be chaired by Shah, will be the second such exercise in less than a fortnight. Doval is also expected to attend Friday’s meeting. J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and senior functionaries of the Central Government and the UT would participate in the meeting which is also expected to take stock of the arrangements for the annual Amarnath yatra, being held after a two-year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic.

In the last meeting on June 17, Shah had advocated pro-active and coordinated counter-terror operations and had asked security forces to ensure zero cross-border infiltration and wipe out terrorism from the Union Territory.