“In the Kashmir Valley, where some areas face the threat, Central and state intelligence agencies have been posted to make spot assessment of the threat perception,” he said.

Significantly, the state government’s stand over protection to panchayat members has come a day after the expiry of 24-hour deadline given by them to clear its stand over the issue.

When his attention was drawn towards recent threat by Sayed Salah-ud-Din, Omar said, “Unfortunately, his (Salah-ud-Din’s) own tune is changing.” He recalled that Salah-ud-Din was the one who had earlier said that there would be no threat to panches and sarpanches and that these elections could go ahead without any threat from militants. “I do not know why he has now jumped suddenly on this bandwagon of issuing the threat,” he said.

Pakistan-based Hizbul Mujahideen chief Salah-ud-Din had issued a threat to the elected panchayat members and asked them to quit their posts. The All Jammu Kashmir Panchayat Conference had already made it clear that none of them would resign despite militant threat as they had contested elections in view of their conviction towards democracy and not on the agenda of any political party or the Kashmir issue.

Replying to another question, Omar said protection of panchayat members had nothing to do with the demand for the revocation of AFSPA.

“Militants always look for soft targets but protection has nothing to do with AFSPA. We never used the Army to protect anyone. Till now, the Army was not used for protection. The Army is being used for anti-insurgency operations and it will continue,” he said. He wanted a phased withdrawal of AFSPA.

“I don’t set deadline for the revocation of AFSPA. It is an ongoing discussion on which some forward movement is being made. Beyond that, it would not be appropriate to share any detail. I had a very fruitful discussion on the subject during the recent visit of Union Home Minister and the work is in progress,” he said.