Braving heavy downpour Jammu & Kashmir Governor NN Vohra Thursday hoisted the National flag before taking salute at an impressive parade at the Maulana Azad stadium in Jammu.
Despite high level of threat the day passed off peacefully with no major incident of violence reported from any district headquarter. Weather gods, however, played spoiled sport as senior Cabinet Ministers could not make it to Kashmir valley to attend the Republic day functions.
In Jammu, overnight rains had left the venue of the state function in a bad shape yet over enthusiastic ‘men in uniform’ and school going children participated in the parade.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti along with her Cabinet colleagues from PDP, who could not reach Kashmir valley due to bad weather conditions, attended the State function. leader of the Opposition and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also skipped the State function.
Meanwhile, Indian troops presented sweets to the Pakistan Army personnel at Poonch-Rawalakot and Hot Spring-Mendhar crossing points as part of confidence building measures along the line of Control. The Pakistan Army officials reciprocated the gesture by presenting sweets in return to the Indian delegation.
Defence spokesman said, "the exchange of sweets is demonstrative of the goodwill by the Indian Army to ensure peace and tranquility on the line of Control".
local residents in frontier districts of Rajouri and Poonch and hilly districts of Doda,Kishtwar and Ramban joined hands with the Army to celebrate the Republic Day.
At various places children braving snowfall attended the flag hoisting ceremonies and participated in the cultural items.
In his Republic day address Governor NN Vohra targeted the separatists and their supporters saying that continuation of hartals and violent protests, like the one witnessed last year, will yield no other result except dragging out people and Jammu & Kashmir to slip further far behind.
Without naming Hurriyat Conference and other separatists, who had been issuing hartal calendars last summer in the aftermath of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani, the Governor said, “time has now come for the leaders of various movements in our society, and all those who follow them, to accept that the continuation of hartals and protests would take the State nowhere except causing irreparable damage to various sectors including education”.
Vohra said, “I yet again appeal to the leaders of all social, cultural, religious, political and other organisations in Jammu & Kashmir to seriously ponder over happening in the past months (a reference to five-month long Kashmir unrest in 2016) and recognize that the recurring agitations are causing varied adverse consequences for our people, particularly those who live in Kashmir”.
Batting for dialogue, the Governor called upon the stakeholders not to lose any further time in accepting that only way forward is through reconciliation, restoration of communal harmony and engaging in dialogue to resolve all issues.
In Jammu and Kashmir, our greatest strength is our youth, who comprise almost half of our population.
“As we have seen for ourselves in the past few years, despite the severe constraints arising from recurring spells of disruption and disorder, our youth has been doing very well in almost every arena. Besides excelling in studies and winning awards and national fellowships, a growing number of our students have been gaining high positions in the All India Services, Central Services, Defence, Central Police Forces and other Services,” Vohra said.
A matter for even greater pride, in the past year our young boys and girls have won medals in various sports at National, Asian, Common Wealth and World Championships. And, more recently, one of our bright young girls from the Valley has made an excellent beginning in the cinema world, he said. Deputy Chief Minister Prof Nirmal Singh attended the Republic day function in Udhampur. Other BJP ministers visited different district headquarters across Jammu province and hoisted National flag braving inclement weather conditions. In the evening Governor hosted At Home for galaxy of prominent citizens and state awardees from different backgrounds.