The Jammu and Kashmir government has said that it does not have any immediate plans to disband Village Defence Committees, though it admitted that there were a lot of criminal cases pending against them.
In a written reply to a question posed by National Conference MLA Ali Muhammad Sagar, the government praised the role played by the VDCs in keeping many villages out of the reach of the militants and said the situation is not yet conducive for doing away with VDCs.
Sagar had asked the government about the steps taken by it to disband the VDCs in view of “increasing human rights violations like murder, rape, rioting and misuse of the allotted weapons by the members of the VDCs”. There are 221 cases registered against VDC members including 23 cases of murder, seven cases of rape and 15 cases of rioting in Jammu.
The government, however, made it clear that if any VDC member is found guilty of misusing his allotted weapon, he will be disengaged.