Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday called for the strictest punishment against those involved in the Delhi blast, but added that the actions of a “handful of people” must not define the majority of peace-loving residents of the Union Territory, PTI reported.

“Every resident of Jammu and Kashmir is not a terrorist,” the news agency quoted the National Conference leader as having told reporters. “Not every Kashmiri is on the side of terrorists. It is only a handful of people who have tried to disturb the peace and harmony here.”

On Monday evening, a car exploded near the Red Fort metro station in Delhi, leaving 13 persons dead. While no details have been officially provided yet about what caused the blast, the police have filed a case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Explosives Act.

Reports have alleged that Umar Nabi, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district, was believed to be in the car that exploded. Reports have also claimed that Nabi was a key figure in a terror network spanning Kashmir, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Hours before the blast, the police said that it had cracked an “inter-state and transnational terror module” in Haryana’s Faridabad and Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur. Two doctors from Kashmir – Adeel Ahmad Rather and Muzamil Shakeel – are among those arrested in the alleged case.

Shakeel, a doctor, taught at Al-Falah University at Dhauj in the Faridabad district. Two more persons from the university – Umar Mohammed and Shaheen Shahid – have been taken into custody in the case.

On Wednesday, the Union government described the blast as a “terrorist incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces”.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Abdullah underscored the need to distinguish between perpetrators and the general populace, PTI reported.

“When we begin to look at every Kashmiri Muslim through the same lens and try to give the impression that every Kashmiri Muslim is a terrorist, it becomes very difficult to keep things on the right track,” the news agency quoted the chief minister as saying.

Abdullah said that those responsible for the attack in the national capital should be brought to justice and given the harshest punishment but innocent persons must not be harassed in the process.

In the backdrop of the blast and the terror module case, the Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday conducted raids at more than 300 locations in the Kashmir valley allegedly linked to persons affiliated with the banned Jamaat-e-Islami.

The raids were conducted in the districts of Kulgam, Pulwama, Shopian, Baramulla and Ganderbal.

More than 200 locations in Kulgam were raided, and over 400 cordon-and-search operations were carried out in the district in the past week.

The police also interrogated about 500 persons allegedly affiliated with banned organisations. Several of those interrogated have been shifted to District Jail Mattan in Anantnag under preventive detention laws.

The police also claimed to have recovered incriminating material, including documents and digital devices, during the raids.

The actions came after intelligence that elements linked to the Jamaat-e-Islami, banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, were trying to revive the organisation under different names, the police said.

The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have not linked the terror module and blast cases with the ongoing raids.

The Gurugram Police on Tuesday also asked residential societies in the city to submit a list of residents from Jammu and Kashmir and foreign citizens living there.

Vishnu Prasad, assistant police commissioner for Gurugram city, told Scroll that they had been “instructed to do this”.

“We are inquiring about who has come from where and for how long they have been staying here,” Prasad told Scroll on Wednesday. “We are doing this for people from Jammu and Kashmir as well as foreigners. It is for security purposes.”

It is a routine check, the assistant police commissioner had added.

Also read: Two doctors and a terror cell: What J&K police action before Delhi car blast revealed

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