Following the footsteps of his father Farooq Abdullah who advocated bombardment of militant training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir during his tenure, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Monday suggested to Government of India to answer a fire with a fire if Pakistan continued to violate cease-fire along the line of Control (loC) and International Border.
He said the “other alternatives” can be explored besides talking on the issues, if Pakistan continued to violate ceasefire along the Jammu and Kashmir’s borders.
“The continuous ceasefire violations by Pakistan along loC will not be tolerated and Government of India should take up the issue seriously with Pakistan. If Pakistan will continuously violate the ceasefire, we will not respond only with talks but we will look for other alternatives. We know how to answer a fire with a fire but we are still maintaining calm,” Omar said on Police Commemoration Day here.
Pretending to believe that the ceasefire violations were reflective of wedge between Pakistan’s military and political establishment, Omar said that he does not understand whether Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s has offered consent to ceasefire violations or he has no control over such affairs.
“We don’t understand why the ceasefire which has benefited the people of this State is being violated continuously. We don’t understand whether these ceasefire violations are taking place at the behest of Pak PM or he doesn’t have any control over the prevailing situation”, he said asserting that Pakistan’s attempts and designs would be failed.
The Chief Minister said that shelling of Pakistan forces has made the life of people living on loC and IB in Jammu and Kashmir miserable.
“It has made them to leave their houses, abandon agricultural activities and flee to safer places”, he said adding that he would ask the Government of India to take up this issue with Pakistan strongly and in plain speaking terms.
“Tell them that the answer to shelling cannot be given by words. We do not want to retaliate the bullet with the bullet for the larger interests of the civilians living on loC and IB but that does not mean that the answer to bullet is not the bullet”, he said and added that shelling on Jammu and Kashmir borders and loC has marred education, agriculture, economic activities and endangered the life of people who are fleeing from these areas.
Omar’s “threat” to Pakistan is akin to his father Farooq Abdullah’s repeated statements during his tenure between 1996 and 2002 when he used to advocate bombardment of terror infrastructure in Pakistan and part of Kashmir controlled by it. However, Omar’s tone is less aggressive and accommodates reconciliation as well.
Reacting to Nawaz Sharif’s statement over US intervention in Kashmir, Omar said that Pak Premier was ‘guilty of playing’ to his home audience as he knows that India would not accept the third party intervention into the matter of J&K. “Clearly through his experience, Nawaz Sharif knows it well that India will not accept any sort of foreign mediation or third party intervention into the matter of J&K and which is that both the countries have accepted in the Tashkant agreement way back decades,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that a team of four Ministers along with Deputy Chief Minister are visiting the ceasefire violation affected areas on Monday. Omar said that he along with the Union Home Minister would visit these areas on Tuesday. “I assure people that for making their lives easy, each and every measure will be taken from the Government side,” he said.
Abdullah cautioned against the attempts by various elements to vitiate peace and tranquility in Jammu and Kashmir and said that the security grid should be more vigilant, alert and careful so that no chance is given to militants to strike in order to “lower the morale of security forces”. He said the morale of security forces strengthens by the attacks where martyrdom is attained.