Those advocating the cause of stone pelters in the Kashmir Valley are playing petty politics, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here on Sunday.
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To reiterate the government’s resolve not to budge on the issue, he said, “They (stone-pelters) are not satyagrahis but aggressors”.
Accusing Pakistan and the separatists of fomenting violence in Kashmir, he said: “Once again, they have attacked India’s integrity in a new way… it’s a big challenge for the country… we can not compromise with the security and integrity of the nation”.
Stating that the current crisis in the Valley is a major challenge for the nation, Jaitley said that India’s need at the moment is absolutely no compromise on the security and the unity of the nation, adding that this strategy of Pakistan will be thwarted as well.
Referring to Pakistan, Jaitley said that after facing defeats in two wars, the neighbouring country has realised that it was not possible to snatch Jammu & Kashmir from India by means of wars, so it started training and pushing in terrorists.
He said India had more conventional strength in both 1965 and 1971 and Pakistan was defeated in both the wars.
Secondly, as Jammu and Kashmir has faced violence and wars, it needs development which was denied for past 60 years by National Conference and Congress Governments.
Further stating that it was ridiculous to blame Pakistan completely for the Kashmir unrest, he added that Islamabad was partially responsible in fanning the flames, but they were not exclusively to blame. “And third, as BJP has a stronghold in Jammu, Nirmal Singh should think about gathering resources from the Centre to contribute to the state’s development”, Jaitley said.
He said that post 9/11 attacks on America, the world came to know about the menace of terrorism and Pakistan stood exposed as an incubator of terrorism.
He said that they found a new way and stone pelting stated, when an Amaranth agitation started in Jammu in the year 2008. If a troop of 8-10 police personnel is attacked by 200 men with 10, 000 stones what else is that except an attack.
A senior leader of BJP said that children going to school were given stones in their bags instead of books to target the state police and security forces. “The organisation which gets a lot of assistance from foreign countries had organized this function”, Jaitley said. After paying such a high price (for independence), the psychological makeup of some political parties is such that they link it with the vote bank.
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“This is not the right to freedom of expression… one can’t talk of disintegration of the country”. They have been attacking police and security forces yet there are some people with limited vision who can not see this nefarious design, he said. “When in the JNU, slogans of “Bharat k Tukday Tukday” were shouted, we were the only political party, which was saying in the Parliament and outside that this is wrong that someone would shout such slogans in Delhi”, he said.
