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| Kashmir can't survive as a free state: Farooq | | | New Delhi | Aug 20
A dispute over whether land should be given or not to the Amarnath Shrine Board has now become a full fledged crisis about the future of Kashmir in India.
For the first time in over a decade, separatist slogans are being openly shouted out in Srinagar. The Government looks helpless and Kashmir is drifting dangerously away from India.Mainstream political parties too are divided on how to address the issue.
National Conference leader, Farooq Abdullah has said Jammu and Kashmir cannot be two separate entities and that the integrity of the state is crucial.
"It is a question of survival. How do you survive? And therefore, I don't think it is very good to think that we can remain free. The question is, can we survive free? It is not about survival as a destroyed state, but survival as a state which is viable, where people can exist happily. Under the present circumstances, freedom is not easy to sustain," he said.
After weeks of massive separatist protests in Kashmir that virtually shut down the region, separatist leaders called for three days of calm, allowing schools and businesses to reopen.
On Wednesday , National Security Advisor M K Narayanan will lead a high-level Central team to Srinagar to take stock of the situation in the state. The Union Home and Defence Secretaries too are expected to accompany him.
The Crisis
The crisis began in June with a dispute over transfer of forestland to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board for use by pilgrims.
Muslims held protests complaining that a state government plan to transfer 99 acres (40 hectares) to the board to build facilities for pilgrims was actually a settlement plan meant to alter the religious balance in the region.
A subsequent decision by the state government to scrap the plan angered the region's Hindus, sparking tit-for-tat demonstrations.
On August 11, at least five people, including a senior leader of Jammu and Kashmir's moderate Hurriyat faction, were killed in clashes with security forces as they marched towards the Line of Control (LoC) in Baramulla district against the economic blockade in the region.
Since then, tensions have escalated leading to people defying curfew and the police firing at protesters in several places.
The death toll in the entire state in the waves of protests and counter-protests now stands at around 40. |
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