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| Has Govt forgotten security of Panchs and Sarpanchs? | | |
early times report
Jammu, Nov 2: In a typical example of the government's style of functioning, the much hyped and talked about security to elected Panchs and Sarpanchs in the State seems to have suddenly been forgotten leaving over 34,000 such elected village heads in the lurch.
After massive resignations by Panchs and Sarpanchs were triggered first in Baramulla district and then in the southern districts of Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag and Kulgam in September following the killing of a Congress party Sarpanch in Kreeri village of Baramulla district, the State government behaved Pro-actively for a while.
Meetings at the highest level were taken by the State Chief Minister to begin with and later by the union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to review the security to the Panchs and Sarpanchs. Having initially refused to provide individual security to each elected village head, Chief Minister finally said individual security would also be considered in cases based on threat perceptions to individual Panchs and Sarpanchs.
Congress General Secretary, Rahul Gandhi not only took up the security aspect of the village heads with the State government, but also assured the delegations of Panchs and Sarpanchs who called on him both in New Delhi and Srinagar that the question of providing security to them would be taken up at the highest level by him.
During the meetings of the Unified Command Headquarters it was decided that area sanitization exercises would be done by the security forces including the various units of the Rashtriya Rifles in districts where militants were known to operate. These area sanitization exercises were aimed at dominating village areas so that the Panchs and Sarpanchs living in those areas felt secure.
Suddenly, all seems to have been conveniently forgotten on this front. The assurances made to village heads have not been fulfilled yet as most of them claim no senior security official has even visited their places to ascertain the security requirements.
The State government had claimed that the holding of the Panchayat elections in the State after a gap of over 30 years was a huge success for democracy. The overwhelming participation by people in those elections was projected as the rejection of separatism and assertion by the masses that they believed in democracy and democratic institutions. More than one year has passed since the Panchayat elections were held in the State. It seems the official euphoria has died down. The security for the Panchs and Sarpanchs is perhaps now not on the priority agenda of the government. In the background of the recent developments it appears those who risked their lives by joining the democratic process of Panchayat elections have finally been left to rue their decision. |
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