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| Antony for ‘low Army visibility without diluting counter-terror grid’ | | |
ABID SHAH
NEW DELHI, JAN 12: The Union Defence Minister AK Antony has, indeed, signaled a new approach to be followed by the Armed Forces in the border State of Jammu and Kashmir. A statement issued by a Defence Ministry spokesman here this evening in the wake of Antony’s today’s day-long visit to Jammu is shorn off aggressiveness of any sort and is marked by firmness backed by a fair degree of realism regarding the situation in the troubled State.
This also allays fears as shared through these columns in yesterday’s edition of Early Times too regarding the possibility of a reversal of the Union Home Ministry sponsored peace moves through quiet diplomacy by Antony’s decision to visit Jammu in the backdrop of recent showdown between a couple of militants and security forces in downtown Srinagar.
The Defence Ministry statement regarding their top boss’s security review undertaken at the Unified Command Headquarters in Jammu shows a great degree of coordination between civilian and military arms of the Government.
Though the Defence Minister exhorted today the top brass of military, commandants of various Central Forces based in Jammu and Kashmir and the State Police to shun complacency and take on militants wherever they could be, he noted the marked decline in the level of violence during last two years throughout the State as positive gain that should be consolidated and enhanced through the just begun 2010.
The Defence Minister was quoted by the spokesman as saying, the year 2010 might prove to be a crucial one as forces inimical to stability and peace in J&K would make all-out efforts to neutralise the gains of 2008 and 2009 when the state witnessed considerable improvement in the security situation. “The incidents of the first week of January in the valley are indicative of the shape of things to come”, the Defence Minister said in reference to the terrorist attack in Lal Chowk area of Srinagar.
And more significantly, Antony said with the improvement in the security situation, time had now come for the State Police to be given far greater responsibility, particularly in major towns in tackling the threat of terrorism in the state. However, '”the handing over of the responsibility must be meticulously planned and undertaken in a gradual, and phased manner”, he said.
In the presence of the State Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, and Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, as per the Defence Ministry statement, Antony talked of the “need to win the hearts and minds” of the people of the State by the security forces. He also reiterated the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s earlier assurance of “zero tolerance” to cases of violation of human rights by security personnel posted in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Defence Minister disclosed that on the request of MOD, the Ministry of Home Affairs has issued instructions to CRPF to take over the entire responsibility of opening of roads on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway- 1 A from January 15, 2010. “This has been done to reduce the visibility of the Army, without in any way, diluting our counter-terrorist grid”, he said.
Antony said a request has also been sent to MHA to issue instructions to discontinue the use of combat uniform by all Central Police Organisations and Sate Police.
This signifies a new positioning on the part of the Ministry of Defence to give the recent peace moves a further chance or the MOD’s falling in line with the Home Ministry’s moves backed by the Prime Minister on the issue of Kashmir.
Observers feel that given the deteriorating situation across the borders in Jammu and Kashmir with Pakistan and also often menacing positions undertaken by China call for peace and order at home so as to allow India to step up its diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis peace and stability throughout South Asia.
Among others the US is more interested in this since Washington wants its Af-Pak policy to take a regional turn where a regional council of important South countries, including India, could bring peace in Afghanistan and ensure a stable regime in Kabul to undertake the task of reconstruction of the country that has been torn by different sorts of wars for about four decades.
Today’s visit by the Defence Minister to Jammu and Kashmir, thus, seeks a kind of situation where the ground for peace talks between different players in the Kashmir Valley is paved instead of being vitiated as attempted among other things through the Lal Chowk incident in Srinagar.
Significantly, both India and Pakistan now find it difficult to ignore the wishes of the United States since both South Asian neighbours are nuclear powers where the lone superpower takes it as a matter of right to oversee their manoeuvres and often tells the broad terms on as contentious an issue as that of Kashmir has turned out to be for past two decades or so threatening a showdown between India and Pakistan. |
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