Foreign terrorists are not just a serious risk to the life and liberty of the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir but they are now turning out to be a very serious health hazard.

Their highly promiscuous behaviour under combat stress has contributed to the spread of HIV infection in the state, top defence sources said on Sunday.

Till now, J&K was considered a low prevalence state for AIDS. However, AIDS-affected foreign terrorists, the movement of trucks carrying supplies to the state and over-crowed jails have added to the risk.

The latest spurt in these figures has been traced to foreign terrorists, they said adding Afghans and Pakistanis have been spreading this deadly virus through homosexual contact.

The 'unfortunate' truth is that a large number of the foreign terrorists are former inmates of Pakistani jails where they were offered a chance to redeem themselves by enrolling for the jihad (holy war) in Kashmir.

Right now, there are 273 full-blown cases of HIV infection in the state, including 40 in six districts of the Kashmir valley, the defence sources said.

Army doctors organising medical camps in Rajouri-Poonch district as also to the border districts of Kupwara and Baramulla were alarmed to note that the immune system of a large number of patients has broken down due to HIV infection.

Discreet enquiries revealed that foreign terrorists had been exploiting young boys and girls in the valley. The problem was earlier considered manageable but recent statistics are now giving cause for serious alarm.

The National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) has detected more than 14,000 HIV-positive cases. The number is believed to be even higher with several cases unreported due to the social stigma attached to this dreaded disease, the sources told PTI in Jammu.

According to Dr Farooq Dar of the Srinagar-based Bones and Joint Hospital, facilities for testing blood for HIV before transfusion are available only at four hospitals. If these are made available at other hospitals too, many more instances of AIDS cases would be detected. None of the district and sub-district hospitals have these facilities.