Acting on a report by the state police's Crime Investigation Department (CID), the Jammu and Kashmir government has sacked 12 of its officials for allegedly taking part in fuelling unrest in the state.
Many more are being closely monitored and more sackings could follow, reports NDTV.
The government employees were dismissed from service for “anti-national activities” on Wednesday evening. Those sacked are mid-level officers from different government departments, including patwaris or land revenue record officials and teachers, according to the report.
Public Safety Act (PSA), under which several of them have been charged, allows people to be jailed without trial for six months.
The almost daily anti-government protests, the curfew and near-total shutdowns, and a host of other restrictions sparked by the 8 July killing of a young militant have been going on since over 100 days now.
The action against the officials comes amid a massive crackdown by the state police, in which more than 9,000 people have been arrested for disrupting peace and more than 450 have been detained under the PSA, says the report.
This sacking of government officials over allegations of anti-national activities comes for the second time in all these years. Five officials were sacked in 1990 for their pro-separatist stand and that had led to a three-month-long strike by government employees in Kashmir.
(Source: NDTV)
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