Srinagar/ New Delhi: Continuing its crackdown on terror in the Kashmir Valley, India has withdrawn the security cover of 919 people. This includes 22 separatist leaders.

These people, tagged as “undeserving”, have been without their police guards and shadows since the imposition of governor’s rule on June 20, 2018.

In the process of revoking redundant security covers, the government has, therefore, freed up as many as 2,768 police personnel.

On top of that, the government also freed up nearly 400 police vehicles, which can now actually be put to policing purposes and for maintaining law and order in Jammu and Kashmir.

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Sources in the Union home ministry told MyNation that the ministry had observed that a large number of “underserving” people had managed to secure for themselves police guards and security cover which had stretched the already thin resources of the force, which could otherwise be used for the public at large.

Citing inappropriate use of public resources, the ministry has ordered the state to revoke the security covers.

The Centre has come down heavily on separatists and terror sympathisers after the Pulwama attack on February 14. While agencies such as the Enforcement Directorate and income tax have raided several places and attached numerous properties associated with the separatist leaders such as Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Shabir Shah, the Union government recently unearthed terror funding hawala rings in the state that fund terrorists.

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The Centre had also instituted an eight-member elite team, including representatives of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Central Board of Direct Taxation (CBDT), to break the terror funding networks in the Valley.