Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s press conference here turned into a high-voltage drama when Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti lost her cool and aborted his candid interaction with the media. “Ninety-five percent people don’t want violence”.
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Jammu and Kashmir Police have “not acted and the alleged troublemakers are roaming about free”, the source said, adding that the Chief Minister was being pressurized to crack down on them.
About 2,000 Pandit youth returned to the Kashmir valley in 2010 under Prime Minister employment package to start their life afresh in their homeland which their families were forcedto leave after the eruption of separatist insurgency in 1990.
India’s future, he said, is intrinsically linked to the future of Kashmir.
The chief minister also said that those hit by bullets or pellets don’t go out to fetch milk or toffees “but attack police stations and security camps”.
This comes hours after Home Minister Rajnath Singh announced in Srinagar that the Centre was open to sending an all-party delegation to Kashmir.
She also elaborated on her earlier comments that only five per cent people of Kashmir are agitating. We want resolution, ‘ she asserted.
“Youth in Kashmir should have pens, books and computers in their hands, not stones”. There was a fake encounter in Machil. “If future of Kashmir is not shaped, future of India can not be shaped too”, Singh, with Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti by his side, told reporters on the second day of his visit to Kashmir – his second in one month – as part of Centre’s outreach to people of Kashmir.
The issue has, however, been hijacked by 5% of people who believe in violence, ” a visibly upset Mehbooba said even as Singh tried to pacify her, constantly patting her on the knee. The Pulwama curfew was owing to the death of a youth after clashes with security forces on Wednesday. He pledged to find an alternative to pellet guns, and reach out to the young people of Kashmir, promising them security and safety anywhere in India.
“In the coming few days, we will give an alternative to the pellet guns”.
She said that Singh’s visit was as “futile” as his last one, as no one barring India’s “stooges” met him.
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The home minister also expressed the government’s willingness to talk to separatists saying, “We are willing to talk to anyone within the scope of Kashmiriyat, Jamooriyat and Insaniyat”. “I have appealed to the people to treat Kashmiris like their brethren and instill confidence among Kashmiri students”, Rajnath Singh said. “Let us differentiate between those people who want peaceful resolution through dialogue, reconciliation and those who train poor children to pelt stones on roads and camps”. “I have saved them from the knives when they were taken for bonded labour”, she said.
