Reiterating her faith in the leadership qualities of the Prime Minister, Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said if there is any leader in the country who can find a solution to the State’s problem then it is Narendra Modi.
“The Prime Minister of our country has been given a very strong mandate by the people. I am saying it again, and I may be criticised for it, but if there is someone, who could find a solution to the problem of Jammu & Kashmir, it is Narendra Modi,” she said while addressing a gathering soon after inaugurating a flyover in Jammu.
Meanwhile, in view of the terrorists targeting banks in Kashmir of late, cash transactions at nearly 40 branches in sensitive areas of Pulwama and Shopian districts have been stopped following an advisory issued by security agencies.
Though none of the PDP Ministers was present in Jammu with Mehbooba, she herself reached out to the BJP leadership by praising Modi’s visit to lahore in December 2015. “It’s a sign of strength that PM Modi visited lahore in just an hour. It’s not a weakness,” she said and lashed out at former PM Manmohan Singh maintaining he also had a desire to visit Pakistan but couldn’t do it as he lacked the strength. between the alliance partners over the issue of handling the prevailing political and security situation in Kashmir Valley, even as clashes broke out between protesting students and security forces in Handwara town and Pulwama on Saturday. Several students were injured in the clashes.
Banks operating in the two districts have been asked to stop cash deliveries at the branches located in these areas as the agencies apprehend more such attacks.
Meanwhile, despite a ban on social media websites, a new video surfaced in Kashmir with suspected Hizbul Mujahideen militants seen torturing two youths, accusing them of being informers of the security forces. In the clip, the militants, dressed in Army fatigues, are seen tonsuring the two youths at an unknown location. The duo is then thrashed severely with sticks and their heads immersed in a bucket of water.
For its part, the police arrested three alleged over ground workers of militant outfits from Shopian district and seized three hand grenades from them. A 12-year-old boy, Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, from Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir was detained after he crossed over into Indian territory along the line of Control in J&K’s Rajouri district. Army sources said it is suspected that he was sent by terrorists in connivance with the Pakistan Army to conduct a recce of infiltration routes and patrol tracks of the Army.
As for Mehbooba reaching out to the PM, the differences between the BJP and PDP remain despite a high-level meeting between her and Modi in New Delhi last month. Multiple statements made by the central BJP leaders refusing to engage with the separatist leaders had earlier triggered strong reactions from the PDP leadership casting a cloud of uncertainty over the alliance.
Hitting out Manmohan Singh, Mehbooba said, “He (ex-PM) had repeatedly said he wants to visit his ancestral home in lahore. It was an excuse as basically he too wanted to have a solution to this issue but couldn’t do it as he lacked the strength.”
She said the current situation in the Valley is because of the fact that the previous Government didn’t carry forward the process initiated by the late Mufti Mohammad Sayeed and ex-PM AB Vajpayee.
“Path breaking initiatives, be it cease-fire, cross-loC bus service or dialogue with separatists were taken in just three-years of the Mufti Government. But they were not carried forward by successive Governments. The lava was simmering and it surfaced in 2008 and 2010 and now it’s what we are seeing,” said the CM.
Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Prof Nirmal Singh, BJP MP from Jammu-Poonch Jugal Kishore Sharma and local legislators while attending a function at Women’s Degree College, Gandhi Nagar, lashed out at hardliner separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani for blaming Army goodwill schools of “indoctrinating” students in the State.
“These people (separatists) on one hand provide quality and wholesome education to their children, but on the other hand deny basic education to the common people of the state,” Singh said.
On Friday, Geelani had said that the institutions run by security forces are “making them (students) indifferent towards their religion and specific culture”.
In a statement issued in Srinagar, Geelani while taking serious note of this “trend” urged parents to avoid these institutions. “For petty material gains, we are losing our next generation. Parents should be careful about the future (of their wards),” he said, adding, “We need to see what education these institutions are imparting to our children.”