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Kashmir : Stepped up militancy |
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There has been renewed violence in Kashmir. Twelve persons belonging to the Gujjar community, including a woman and four children, were killed and eight injured in a militant attack in Marrah area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district on June 26. The Gujjar men were members of the Village Defence Committee (VDC) set up a year ago and were provided with rifles. Ever since the VDC was formed, the threats from militants had become frequent.
In another incident, the bodies of a railway engineer and his brother were found in a remote village of Pulwama district in Jammu and Kashmir, two days after they had been abducted by gunmen. Witnesses said the bodies of Sudhir Kumar Pundir, an engineer with the Indian Railways Construction (IRCON), and his brother, Sundeep, were found half-buried in a pit in a field at Malnar Karewa in Pulwama district. “Their eyes were blindfolded and hands and legs tied with ropes and their throats slit,” said a villager. Following this incident, IRCON is withdrawing its staff from the project linking Kashmir by rail to the rest of the country.
Prompted by these incidents Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee on June 26 directed the Army to further step up counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir. Mukherjee said there would be “no let-up” in anti-terrorist operations till terrorism was rooted out completely. “At the same time, dialogue with various sections in J&K and Pakistan will continue... we will work on both the political and security fronts,” he said, soon after Pakistan foreign secretary Riaz Khokhar’s arrival in Delhi for talks with his Indian counterpart.
Though refraining from blaming Pakistan for the latest incident, Mukherjee did acknowledge that it would be difficult to resolve the Kashmir problem unless Islamabad stopped “aiding and abetting” terrorism from across the border. The minister said the terrorists, under relentless pressure from the Army, wanted to “convey a message”, a day before the Indo-Pak foreign secretary-level talks, that they were very much alive and kicking and could not be ignored.
EU delegation suggestion
The European Union parliamentary delegation, which met Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil in New Delhi last week has sought the involvement of the people of Kashmir from both sides of the Line of Control (LoC) in any dialogue between India and Pakistan for a lasting solution. John Cushnahan, who led the delegation, said the Kashmir problem was a “tragedy of huge proportion” . “The people of Kashmir, who have been affected the most by the failure to resolve the issue, should be involved to find some answers to the over 50-year problem,” he said after an hour-long meeting with Patil.
The EU team returning from their three-day visit to J&K said that “the entire political spectrum involving all of Kashmir” should be part of the dialogue. They also met National Security Advisor J.N. Dixit.
Meanwhile, the separatist camp in J-K cheered the EU team’s remarks endorsing their role for tripartite talks. The team drew praise from a wide range of separatist leaders from hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Yasin Malik to Abdul Gani Bhat of the moderate Hurriyat Conference.
Earlier, rival factions of the Hurriyat Conference had reacted angrily to the statement of European Union ambassador to India Francisco da Gamara Gomes that EU treats Jammu and Kashmir as any other part of India. ‘Had it (J-K) been the integral part of India then why should New Delhi hold talks with Pakistan... I am unable to understand what prompted EU to claim that Kashmir is a part of India,” Hurriyat Conference chairman Moulvi Mohammad Abbas Ansari said.
Ansari, who held two rounds of talks with the Centre, said his faction was holding dialogue because they consider Kashmir as a dispute and want its solution through peaceful means. “We have been saying it earlier and we reiterate it today that talks with the Centre has been initiated because we consider Kashmir as a dispute. This needs resolution through negotiations and that is what we are trying to do,” Ansari said.
A spokesman of the breakaway Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani termed Gomes’ remarks as ridiculous but said it would have no bearing on the “disputed nature” of Kashmir issue. “We want to reiterate that Kashmir issue has its own history. All countries of the civilised world including European countries are aware about its history,” he said.
The breakaway faction of Hurriyat Conference headed by S.A.S. Geelani, has in the meanwhile, appealed to Red Cross to impress upon the Centre to facilitate release of political detainees languishing in jails across the country. “Many separatist leaders have been detained in jails without trial and false allegations are levelled against them,” a spokesman said in a statement. The detainees were suffering from ailments as they lackedproper medical care and substandard food were being provided to them, he charged.
Differences over Amarnath yatra
The ruling PDP-Congress coalition in Jammu and Kashmir appeared to be set on a collision course over the Amarnath Yatra’s tenure, with four Congress ministers resigning from the government. The Congress leaders who resigned are Minister of State for Consumer Affairs Raman Bhalla, Minister of State for Youth and Sports Yogesh Sawhney, Minister of State for Tourism Jugal Kishore and Minister of State for Revenue Ramesh Sharma. All hailing from Jammu region, the ministers submitted their papers in protest against CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s decision to restrict the annual pilgrimage to one month without taking the Congress into confidence. Mufti’s move to extend the yatra by a few days was not acceptable to the spokesman of the pilgrims, who said they will go ahead with the march from July 2.
After the ministers sent in their resignations to state Congress chief and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, J-K Deputy CM Mangat Ram Sharma arrived in Delhi for discussions with the party high command. Congress leaders are learnt to have a long list of grievances against the PDP over the manner in which decisions are being taken without keeping the coalition partner in the loop. This would be the second time in the last six months that the PDP-Congress coalition partners have taken different stands.
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