Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said the Indian government doesn’t want any “forcible” bond with Jammu and Kashmir but a relationship based on emotions.
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Singh said the Government of India was eager to develop “emotional relationship” with Kashmir rather than “need-based relationship”.
With regard to pellet guns, which maim and blind, Rajnath said he extends sympathy with all injured and said: “We will constitute a expert committee to find out ways to use non-lethal weapons”.
He urged Kashmiri youths not to throw stones at security forces and told police and paramilitary forces to avoid using pellet guns that have blinded several protesters.
Kashmir Economic Alliance (KEA) and Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the two major trade and economic bodies in the Valley, while deciding not to meet the Home Minister, said “such exercise will be futile”.
The Minister said there is no need to involve any third party for the restoration of normalcy in Kashmir.
The situation across the Valley is peaceful so far, he said. Lastly, the meeting, while taking note of discussion in both houses of the Parliament, called for “converting this political consensus into a national initiative for addressing the problems confronting Jammu and Kashmir”.
Singh rejected the criticism that security forces used pellet guns indiscriminately, but at the same time said it can not be denied that some of them might have made mistakes. “If there is a disagreement or a dispute that can be resolved by talks, sitting together… there can’t be any option other than this”, he said.
The minister was flanked by Home Secretary, Rajiv Mehrishi, Joint secretary home, JK deputy chief minister Dr Nirmal Singh, and PWD minister A R Veeri.
A police official said the day passed off peacefully with no untoward incident reported from anywhere in the Valley.
“We are traders, what would India achieve by talking to us”, KTMF president Yasin Khan said in a statement.
The Home Minister said the Centre has also evolved a programme for providing employment opportunities to Kashmiri youth and engage them.
Mehbooba said internal and external forces have always ganged up to destabilise Kashmir whenever there has been a semblance of normality in the Valley.
However he asserted that India did not favour any kind of third party intervention saying: We don’t need a third party’s involvement to address the situation that prevails in Jammu and Kashmir.
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Life remained paralysed in the Kashmir Valley as curfew, restrictions and separatists called shutdown continued for the 15th day on Saturday.
