He said the terrorists in Kashmir were “now under great pressure” and the financial crunch caused by demonetisation and the action taken by National Investigation Agency (NIA) on illegal foreign fundings have checked illegal activities in Jammu and Kashmir on a large scale.

“Today no big militant can dream of committing terror acts and continue to terrorise the Valley for decades, but today their life shelf has dwindled to a few months. I will specifically praise the Jammu & Kashmir police for working hard (towards eliminating terrorists),” he said.

Jaitley said the country faced two serious threats — one with respect to Jammu and Kashmir with maximum incidents happening from across the border, and the second being the problem of Left-Wing Extremism in central parts of the country.

“Since independence, Pakistan has never agreed that Kashmir is an integral part of India. That has been their unfinished agenda. They tried conventional war. But India’s capability was way ahead in the conventional war. The wars of 1965, 1971 and Kargil clearly proved this,” he said.

Jaitley said in the 1990s, they started changing their strategies and resorted to encouraging terrorism inside the country.

“There is domination of our forces on the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border and it is difficult for terrorists to cross them,” he said at the India TV Conclave ‘Vande Mataram’.

To a question about beheading and mutilation of Indian security force personnel by Pakistan, Jaitley said “what happened after that, has been seen by everyone”. He was apparently referring to the surgical strike inside the parts of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir after the incident.

Jaitley said the forces were dominating the border with the help of technological tools. “After surgical strikes in September last year, our forces are liquidating militants,” he said.

The defence minister said that there was a move by the security forces to clean up the Valley of armed terrorists.

He said the money received by terrorists and other such groups has been squeezed post-demonetisation and there has been the effect of the actions taken by the NIA against foreign funding allegedly used for subversive activities.

“Whenever there was an encounter (earlier), hundreds and thousands would come out to throw stones. Many a times, terrorists would escape under the protection of stone throwers. This is now becoming a history.

“Those who were coming in hundred and thousands, today their number is limited to 20, 30 and 50. For the first time in the history, we have been they have started looting banks,” he said.

Jaitley said the terrorists are under tremendous pressure. “They are on the run. Their number is also declining. Security forces are dominating them ,” he said.