Against the backdrop of the ongoing unrest in the Kashmir Valley, former Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah led a delegation of the State’s Opposition to meet President Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday, backing the Army’s call for a dialogue among all stakeholders and asking the Government to work out a political solution to the Kashmir crisis rather than tackling it administratively.
“The failure of the Central Government to acknowledge that the issue in Kashmir is largely of a political nature has worsened the already volatile situation,” Abdullah, who was leading a delegation of 20 Opposition leaders, told reporters after an hour-long meeting with the President.
“We have requested the President to impress upon the Central Government to initiate a credible and meaningful process of political dialogue without any further delay, involving all stakeholders to address the political issue in the State,” said the National Conference leader, adding, “I feel sad that what we wanted to hear from our political leadership is unfortunately coming from the Army leadership.”
The Northern Commander today thinks that there should be talks with all people who have a different mindset. So the question is, why our political leaders could not do this," Abdullah said after the meeting.
The Army had on Friday appealed for calm, saying "everyone needs to step back" and sit together to find a way out of the current situation. Asking everyone involved to look at ways to de-escalate the situation rather than provoking it further, Northern Army Commander lieutenant-General DS Hooda said while security forces have been directed to exercise maximum restraint, the other side also needs to see that security forces, police stations and bases of security forces are not attacked.
The former Chief Minister described as "disappointing" what he called the Centre's refusal to deal with the crisis politically which "can have serious long-term implications on peace and stability in the State," he said.
Blasting the Mehbooba Mufti-headed PDP-BJP Government for having failed on all fronts to normalise the situation, he said the Chief Minister was directly responsible for the deteriorating situation.
Abdullah was flanked by Congress MlAs led by State PCC chief GA Mir, CPM MlA MY Tarigami and Independents. The delegation would also be meeting leaders of other political parties including Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and CPI-M general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
Abdullah warned that a "continued delay in engaging with the people of the State through a comprehensive and sustained political initiative will further deepen the sense of alienation in the Valley and cast a shadow of uncertainty on its future generations".
Flagging the issue of use of pellet guns that resulted in grievous injuries to people, the former Chief Minister said the problem was that the guns were being given to people who did not know how to use them.
Meanwhile, in Uttar Pradesh, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh accused Pakistan of continuously trying to derail peace in the Valley. "Today, I don't feel hesitant in saying that Pakistan is continuously trying to create unrest in Kashmir. It wants to destroy it and derail peace in the Valley," he said here while addressing a Tiranga Rally.
"Recently, I went to Pakistan and you all know our neighbouring country's misdeeds. I don't want to repeat what happened over there, but would like to say that I did not let India's pride go down there. I said one country's terrorist cannot be the hero of another," he said.
"I want to tell the people of Kashmir that we not only love the land of Kashmir but also its people. I would like to appeal to the Kashmiris that we do not want to see stones, bricks and firearms in their hands but pen, computers and jobs. We want to see you employed," Rajnath said.
He said that a violent protest cannot be a solution to a particular issue. There should be peace at first then issues can be resolved through talks.
"Some people are trying to create hatred among Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Parsis by following the divide and rule trick adopted by British rulers but they have failed miserably. No one can divide the people of India," the Home Minister said.