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| Govt rubbishes Geelani's insinuations on panchs killings | | |
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Jan 14: The Government has rubbished senior separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani's statement in which he has obliquely absolved militants of the recent attacks on panchs and sarpanchs in the Kashmir valley.
A senior police officer said that preliminary probe had indicated that militants were responsible for series of attacks on panchs and sarpanchs. Referring to Geelani's statement that no militant outfit had claimed responsibility the police officer said that during the last over 20 years militants had never owned responsibility for acts that could generate public anger.
He said that militants functioned under a well framed strategy. These rebel outfits claim responsibility only if the target of their attack is the security convoy or pickets or political leaders. They invariably feign innocence if their guns and grenades kill innocent civilians. The police said that weeks before the schedule for the Panchayat elections was announced in 2011 separatists, backed by militants, had given a call to people to boycott the poll. Neither the people responded to the boycott call nor the elections could be wrecked by the militants.
He said that in order to avenge their defeat these militants were targeting panchs and sarpanchs so that all of them resigned thereby upsetting the democratic exercise which had been completed in 2011.
Geelani has termed the killing of a Sarpanch in Sopore and another attack on woman Panch as "mysterious incidents", and added that it was not clear who was behind these killings.
"The statements made by the Sarpanch association needs to be given a thorough consideration," Geelani said in a statement issued here. "The killings of Sarpanchs have created doubts in the mind of a common man."
He said though the State administration has blamed militants for the killing of Panchayat representatives, so far no investigation has proved militant hand behind the incidents. "At the same time, no militant outfit has claimed responsibility of the attacks on Sarpanchs," he said. "This all has made the incidents including those happened in the past as mysterious. Meanwhile, the Association of Panchs and Sarpanchs has urged the Government to reexamine the entire issue so that all panchs and sarpanchs were brought under a security cover. However, Government sources said that providing security cover to all the members of the panchayat committees in the state, whose number runs in several thousand, was well nigh impossible in the context of the total police strength.
The Association has suggested to the Government to raise additional police battalions so that panchayat members in sensitive areas were given security cover. |
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