Commenting on Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s current visit to the Valley, he said his second visit is meant to give right signals to the civil society that the Centre is honest in restoring peace.
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Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and other senior officials from the ministry are expected to accompany Rajnath Singh to the valley.
In a bid to reach out to people of Indian-administered Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday expressed his “deep concern and pain” over the situation there and asked all political parties to work together to find a “permanent and lasting” solution to problems in Jammu and Kashmir.
The delegation also said, “continued failure to address the unrest in Kashmir will further deepen the sense of alienation” and hoped that the prime minister “will take immediate measures to address this grave situation”.
Abdullah said the opposition leaders handed over a memorandum to the Prime Minister warning him against the “tried and tested formulations of dealing with the issue in Kashmir administratively rather than politically”.
Abdullah said that it is important to initiate dialogue with the stakeholders of the Jammu and Kashmir to bring back peace in the state and overcome the unrest from the past 50 days.
The Prime Minister “appreciated the constructive suggestions” the leaders of opposition parties made in the meeting.
Kashmiri separatist leaders, a lot of them either under house arrest or in police detention, have vowed to continue their struggle and refused to participate in any dialogue before New Delhi accepts Kashmir as a disputed region, releases political prisoners, revokes harsh emergency laws and announces a plan for demilitarization. “But first it is important to get control on the situation after which we will get answers from the government”, Abdullah told ANI.
Another Congress leader Tom Vadakkan stressed on people-to-people contact to end the unrest in Kashmir.
This is Singh’s second visit in a month to strife-torn Kashmir that has been on the boil following the July 8 killing of insurgent leader Burhan Wani.
“We are confident that the issue of safety to drivers, attendants and vehicles would be amicably resolved and supplies restored to the valley by tomorrow”, Gupta said. More than 68,000 people have been killed since rebel groups began fighting Indian forces in 1989 and in the subsequent Indian military crackdown.
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Bhim Singh’s petition had said that due to the use of pellet guns by the security forces, people were becoming blind and there was a shortage of medicines and medical facilities available to the citizens.
