Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday said the army searches of hotels in Leh district earlier this week were completely illegal as Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was not applicable in the Ladakh region.
"If Army did conduct such an operation at Leh, it has done it completely illegally. There is absolutely no legal cover for them to carry out the sort of activity they did," Omar told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.
He said that Leh and Kargil were the only two districts in the state where AFSPA was not in force.
"In any other part of the state, they would have recourse to cover under AFSPA. That is precisely why we are talking about the need to modify the act and bring out some areas over the period of time out of its purview," he said.
Police earlier this week registered a rioting and wrongful confinement case against the army for entering three hotels in Leh during the intervening night of May 30 and 31.
The case was registered after tourists, including some foreigners, staying in these hotels complained about harassment by the troops.
A defence spokesman said the searches were launched following intelligence inputs about militant plans to disrupt the tourist season in Leh by targeting the airport and hotels.
He also claimed that army had inputs that satellite phones were being used in the area where searches were conducted.
However, a police spokesman countered the army claim by asserting that there was no presence of militants in Leh and it had no knowlegde about the intelligence inputs about plans of ultras to strike there.
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