Amid elaborate security arrangements and a separatist-sponsored shutdown, the Independence Day passed off peacefully in Kashmir Valley even as thousands of people and schoolchildren took part in the celebrations at all district headquarters including in Srinagar where Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti unfurled the national flag.
A helicopter kept hovering over the Bakshi Stadium, the venue of the main State function as all roads leading to the venue were sealed since Monday evening for highly restricted entry. With internet and mobile phones services snapped for several hours, the locals largely remained confined to their homes around the venue even as the old parts of Srinagar were under prohibitory orders.
Contrary to last year’s deserted stands, a sizeable gathering was seen at the venue. Hundreds of schoolchildren and youngsters affiliated with cultural troupes took part in the celebrations.
In her brief address, Mehbooba Mufti exuded confidence in the Supreme Court of India to safeguard the special status of Jammu & Kashmir in the Indian union. Without referring to Article 370 or 35 A of the constitution, she said these provisions in the country’s constitution were the outcome of the conscious decision of people of Kashmir to join the Union of India at the time of partition of the subcontinent in 1947. “The Supreme Court will protect the special status of our State as it has protected it during the past 70 years,” she said.
Mehbooba said J&K is a humanitarian issue and country’s leadership need to take steps to fully retrieve J&K with honour and dignity from the political uncertainties it is engulfed in for the past 70 years.
Mehbooba said the entire political class of the state is united in defending and preserving the special status of the State. She said she met leaders of all political parties in this regard and she was happy to note that there was an overwhelming consensus on the issue among all of them.
She lauded NC President Farooq Abdullah’s gesture to grant her audience on the issue. “Farooq Abdullah gave me valuable suggestions and lent his sympathetic hand on my head. I hope he will continue to shower his benevolence in future also,” he said.
Mehbooba said dialogue was the only way ahead to sort out issues. “I was pleased to see External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj saying that dialogue was the only way ahead in resolving border disputes with China,” she said adding the dialogue must be used to tackle the issue in J&K.
She hoped Pakistan to also understand the need for peaceful engagement with India and the central Government would also undertake a broad based outreach treating the issues within the ambit of humanity as initiated by former Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee. She said the Agenda of Alliance of present Government has also declared that dialogue with all stakeholders in the State is the way forward.
Mehbooba Mufti said good neighborly relations between India and Pakistan were very crucial for the people of the State who bear the brunt of any bitterness in relations between the two countries. She also said due to the recent tension along the loC, hundreds of people living close to the borders in the State had to migrate to safer places. Many of them, she said, lost their lives, schools in these areas got closed and a lot of them were rendered homeless. For how long it would continue, she asked.
Mehbooba asked the parents in Kashmir to handover books and pens in the hands of their wards instead of guns and stones. “let us ponder, how is it that the guns manufactured somewhere far off find their use in every Muslim society. Why should it happenIJ Why can’t our youngsters be put in productive, creative streams rather than in this confusion”, she said.