J&K Police cop Ghulam Hassan Dar’s killing by militants last Friday while he was travelling to join duty at the police control room (PCR) in Srinagar has once again raised doubts as to why the government and people can’t join hands to stop this cycle of violence. Why is it “alright” for men in uniform to sacrifice their today for our tomorrow and why is it that their families have to live the remainder of their lives thinking about what could have been possible had their departed survived? Yes, there is commiseration and compensation, but is that really enough? Most respond to these tragedies with resigned acceptance and verbal platitudes, but the reality is that a life lost never comes back. It is now a habit for the Centre to say that it has a policy of zero-tolerance against terrorism and militancy and that there has been a substantial decline in terrorist attacks. Statistics reveal that in 2018 there were 417 such attacks. It came down to 255 in 2019, 244 in 2020 and 229 in 2021. Between May 2014 and August 4, 2019, Jammu and Kashmir witnessed the killing of 177 civilians and 406 security personnel, and the death of 87 civilians and 99 security personnel between August 5, 2019 and November 2021. Parliament was informed that 496 terror-related incidents were reported from Jammu and Kashmir between August 5, 2019, and November 22, 2021, down from 843 reported in the same time span before the abrogation of Article 370. This is what MoS for Home Nityanand Rai conveyed to Parliament when it was in session in the first week of April this year. There is a reiteration of a robust security and intelligence grid being in place to prevent terrorist attacks, but has this stopped attackers from carrying out strikes at a time and place of their choosing? What was the policeman Dar’s fault to be eliminated in such a dastardly and tragic manner? One can only reason that the aim was simply to send a message, a bleak warning! Last month too, Kashmir was rocked by a spate of terrorist attacks. A Kashmiri Pandit shopkeeper, two migrant workers, a CRPF trooper and two non-local workers were victims of targeted killings by unidentified gunmen. We should not be spelling it out, but we are doing so anyway -- that we as a people and government need to put our individual demands aside, join hands to become a nation of doers to plug lacunae wherever it exists and neutralise this hydra of violence. Together we can. We must take into account these strings of attacks and look for ways to mitigate them sooner than later.