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| ‘PDP’s supply-demand politics can no longer befool people in J&K’ | | Omar blasts PDP over AFSPA, PSA, SOG, ‘fear psychosis’ | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Aug 27: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today asserted that there was neither any increase in abuse of human rights by security forces nor any fear psychosis among the people in Jammu and Kashmir who had, for the first time in last 20 years, thronged Pahalgam, Gulmarg and other tourist hubs in hundreds of thousands on the Independence Day on August 15th this year. He said that the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had been spreading lies to sully the image of his 8-month old government and claimed that the people of Jammu & Kashmir could be no more misled by any politician or political party.
In one of the most impressive speeches ever made in J&K Assembly in the last 25 years, Omar Abdullah deflated the balloon of his criticism from the opposition that had been perceptibly inflating since the day of alleged rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian in May this year. In his two-hour-long speech, Omar said that PDP’s hullabaloo on revocation of J&K Armed Forces Special Act (AFSPA) was nothing but a drama being enacted to hoodwink the people. He said that he had scanned all records and observed that the PDP-led coalition government had never raised the issue of AFSPA in any forum as long as the Party President Mehbooba Mufti was a member of Lok Sabha and Mufti Mohammad Sayeed Chief Minister of this border state.
“There is nothing in record, not even a letter asking the Centre for a discussion on revocation of AFSPA”, Omar said in his exhaustive reply to the two-day-long discussion over the grants of his portfolios and advised the PDP camp not to make any attempt of stealing credit for withdrawal of the law. He asserted that AFSPA, that gives extraordinary powers to the armed forces fighting insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir, had been imposed on the state when the PDP Patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed was India’s Home Minister in 1990.
“You people did nothing (to revoke the law) in the last six years of your government. I have made it clear on day one of taking over as Chief Minister that AFSPA would completely go during our term of six years. We are seriously in touch with the Centre and it is my commitment in this House that we will send your father’s AFSPA packed in a container to New Delhi in the next five years”, Omar addressed the PDP President Mehbooba Mufti, who listened to him with rapt attention for one hour and left the House in the middle of Chief Minister’s speech. He asserted that PDP had been setting the direction of its boat according to the wind.
“When you people learned that India and Pakistan were going to start cross-LoC trade and travel, you began yelling for opening Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road. We call it supply-demand politics. Now you are repeating same on AFSPA”, Omar addressed the PDP camp with his advice that the people of Jammu & Kashmir could be no more befooled by any politician or political party.
Omar claimed that PDP’s bogey of fear psychosis was completely unfounded as all the indicators were pointing towards calm and relaxation. Taking exception to Ms Mufti’s and many other PDP MLAs’ assertion that Police and armed forces had again gone unbridled and a wave of terror had been spread all over with a “chain of killings and detentions”, Chief Minister claimed that today’s peace and tranquility in Kashmir had no parallels in the last 20 years. He said for the first time this year on January 26th, there was no tension in Valley.
Chief Minister said that on occasion of the Independence Day of August 15th, when separatists had called for total shutdown, as many as two-and-a-half Lakh Kashmiris had enjoyed picnic at Pahalgam and one-and-a-half Lakh more had visited Gulmarg. Thousands of others had enjoyed the long weekend at Sonmarg and other tourist attractions. Thousands of civilians, according to him, had also participated in the I-Day function at Bakhshi Memorial Sports Stadium in Srinagar. “There was not an inch of space left vacant in Pahalgam. I got myself stranded in a traffic jam for one hour. Is this the fear psychosis you people are talking about?” Omar asked the PDP camp.
Referring to other indicators of improvement in situation, Chief Minister claimed that 40 percent to 80 percent decrease had been marked in incidents of violence in the last eight months olf the NC-led coalition government. He said that as against 517 civilian killings during first eight months of PDP government in 2002-03, only 53 civilians had been killed in the last eight months in Jammu & Kashmir. He said that even in comparison to the corresponding period in 2008, J&K had witnessed 25 percent to 33 percent decrease in all categories of violence.
Omar asserted that his government was committed to zero-tolerance of human rights abuse by Police and other government agencies. Quoting official figures, he said that Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s government had not implemented even a single recommendation from J&K State Human Rights Commission while as NC-led coalition government had implemented as many as 578 SHRC recommendations and 438 more were pending disposal. He said that his government would further strengthen SHRC.
Responding to PDP MLAs’ allegation that his government had detained large number of people from a 14-year-old boy to 80-year-old Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Omar said that a small number of people were under detention only to prevent them from resorting to stone pelting and other disruptive means. He argued that their release could have endangered peace and destroyed a full bloom tourist season in the Valley. “I had begun to release them all one by one. But they took undue advantage of our goodwill and resorted to disruptive tactics. We have been elected to power by a large majority of people and we are responsible for protecting their life, properties and livelihood”, Omar said.
Omar declared that his government would reconsider the cases of political detainees and set them free on trial basis. “We will be adopting the policy of velvet glow for all those behaving well but those resorting to disruption will be treated with iron fist”, Omar said. He claimed that PDP’s figures about detentions were wrong and claimed that not more than 152 persons had been detained under PSA in the last 8 months. AS many as 121 of them had been subsequently released, he said. According to him, these PSA detainees included 17 foreign militants and 33 timber smugglers. He said that Mufti Sayeed’s government had detained as many as 288 persons under PSA in the first eight months in 2003 and later released 140 of them.
Chief Minister said that his government had taken quick action in all the cases of alleged human rights abuse and proceeded against the suspects and criminals. He said that even in the much publicized Shopian rape-cum-murder, his Government had ordered judicial inquiry within three days of the recovery of two dead bodies in Shopian and a Police inquiry was separately underway. He asserted that his Government would utilize all of its resources and unravel the truth to ensure that whosoever was involved in the heinous crime would get severe punishment.
As regards PDP’s allegation of SOG raising against Dr Farooq Abdullah, Omar asserted that SOG had been floated during Governor’s rule in 1994. It had been inherited by Dr farooq Abdullah’s government and subsequently by Mufti Sayeed’s and Ghulam Nabi Azad’s. “You people have been claiming that you did wind up SOG. Fact of the matter is that it was passed on to us within 10 percent of change. “It is exactly what it was during PDP’s government”, Omar told the PDP MLAs. He claimed that his government was making the counter-insurgent SOG accountable for all of its acts”.
END
CM’s announcements
• AFSPA to go in next 5 years
• SPOs/ VDC members to get ex-gratia like regular Police staff
• Honorarium of SPOs to be increased in coordination with Centre
• On-spot recruitment in Police to continue in far-flung areas
• Jawahar Tunnel to remain open for traffic round-the-clock from next week
• Relocation of troops to continue as a ‘continuous process’
• No load-shedding of power during Sehri, Iftar hours in entire state
• Non-lapsable plan allocation for notified border areas from this year
• All District Development Boards to get advance corpus in lump sum
• DDBs being authorized to decide inter-sectoral reappropriation
• District plan sizes to be increased by 50% from this year
• Flagship schemes being shifted from State to District sector
• Plan additionalities to be released in January instead of March
• 6,000 contractual staff to be regularized in phased manner
• 41,000 people to get government job by March 31, 2010
• Families of all those missing for 7 years to get ex-gratia under SRO-43
• Entire backlog of SRO-43 ex-gratia (Rs 4 Lakh each) to be cleared in 6 months
• Salaries of MLAs, MLCs to be increased in a month
• Detainees, not posing threat to peace, to be released on trial basis
• Separatists, acting as saboteurs, to remain behind the bars
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