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| SASB land storm taking communal shape | | VHP’s Togadia arriving to bully PDP, NC avowals | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | June 20
With several political groups taking an irreversible stand and separatists joining hands on the transfer of land to Shrine Amarnath Shrine Board, a communal frenzy is taking shape threatening secular fabric of Jammu and Kashmir.
Clearly targeting their vote banks, the political groups, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party and the National Conference are seemingly provoking their ideological opposites like BJP and VHP to communal lines. Though the PDP and NC are claiming their stands on principles and raising their concerns on ecological fragility of the areas around Amarnath shrine but the issue being religious in nature has all the potential of creating wedge between the communities. The Congress is, however, looking at the who controversy as a mute spectator.
The Amarnath Yatra is at the centre of a political clash and caught in the middle is the Governor who heads the Amarnath shrine board. There are religious sentiments attached with the transfer of land.
''By accession we have not mortgaged our honour and integrity. We are not anybodies slaves and if officer like that are not punished and removed from the state, there will be wide range agitation for which officer and his boss will be responsible,'' said PDP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Baig.
The controversy began after 40 hectares of forest land at Baltal were transferred to the shrine board to build facilities for Amarnath pilgrims. Environmentalists say the project threatens the forests, to which the shrine board CEO reportedly said that yatris are less polluting than the locals.
In a recent statement, the outgoing Governor Gen Sinha said, ''we are not the only people who have been given forest land. Several thousand Kanals of land have been given to various people. We taken this forest land of 800 Kanals for which we are paying Rs 2.5 crore”.
With the assembly polls just months away it has snowballed into a major confrontation. The opposition says religious bodies should not be under state control.
''In the first assembly session I will reverse all this that has been done by them. Both the authorities and Vashnov Devi Trust or shrine board, whether Waqf Trust will be brought to books in the assembly,'' said Farooq Abdullah, NC patron.
One of the reasons behind the controversy is the government policy of bringing religious bodies under the state's control. Making the Governor the head of Hindu shrine boards and the chief minister the head of Muslim Wakfs, many feel that now the line between the executive posts of Governor and CM and religious institutions is getting blurred.
Meanwhile, reacting to a spate of statements from PDP and NC, the the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP)has said its firebrand leader Praveen Togadia will be here on Sunday to protest calls by Muslim groups to take back land given to the Amarnath Hindu shrine authorities.
VHP Jammu and Kashmir unit chief Rama Kant Dubey said the Muslim groups, including what he described as mainstream political parties, had launched "a malicious campaign" against the Amarnath pilgrimage.
Dubey alleged that Jammu and Kashmir's Muslim leaders wanted to "stop the pilgrimage once and for all". He added that they wanted to "Islamise Kashmir".
He said Togadia, the international general secretary of VHP, would arrive in Jammu Sunday. He would also deliver lectures on the "real designs" of Kashmir's political and "Islamic fundamentalist forces".
Dubey demanded that the Jammu and Kashmir government should be dismissed and governor's rule imposed and action taken against all "anti-national leaders working against Hindu interests and the Amarnath pilgrimage". |
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