As many as 41861 lives were consumed by the three-decade-old armed conflict in Jammu & Kashmir, the Government of India has claimed.According to wire service—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court, the Ministry of Home Affairs has revealed that 41861 persons have lost their lives in 70960 incidents of militancy-related violence in the state which was recently bifurcated into the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.Of them, 14035 were civilians, 5291 personnel of Central and State forces and 22535 militants, the affidavit reveals. The armed conflict broke out in J&K nearly two years after holding of the State elections of 1987, which many believed were blatantly rigged to ensure defeat of candidates of the Muslim United Front so as to facilitate win of NC- Congress candidates.According to the affidavit, the highest number of incidents of violence were recorded in 1995 and the lowest in 2003.As per KNO, it states that 4158 incidents of violence took place in 1990, 3,765 in 1991, 4817 in 1992, 5247 in 1993, 5829 in 1994, 5938 in 1995, 5014 in 1996, 3420 in 1997, 2932 in 1998, 3071 in 1999, 3074 in 2000, 4522 in 2001, 4038 in 2002, 3401 in 2003, 2565 in 2004, 1990 in 2005, 1667 in 2006, 1092 in 2007, 708 in 2008, 499 in 2009, 488 in 2010, 340 in 2011, 220 in 2012, 170 in 2013,222 in 2014, 208 in 2015, 322 in 2016, 342 in 2017 and 614 in 2018.
It states that 287 incidents of militancy-related violence were recorded from January 01 till August 4, the day before the Centre revoked J&K’ special status provided to it under the Article 370 of the Constitution of India.Post revocation of the special status, Kashmir Valley is observing spontaneous shutdown over the past 100 days. According to the MHA’s affidavit, the maximum number of civilian deaths due to militancy-related were recorded in 1996 when 1341 persons lost their lives.The lowest number of civilian fatalities were reported in 2012, 2013 and 2016- 15 deaths each year. The year 2016 also witnessed a five-month long unrest in Kashmir when PDP-BJP was ruling the state. More than 90 civilians were killed by forces during the law & order disturbances following the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen’s tech-savvy commander Burhan Wani. The forces suffered maximum fatalities in 2001 (536 deaths) and the minimum in 2012 (15 deaths). (KNO)