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| NHRC pulls Omar, asks Govt to explain within two months | | Tricolour hoisting controversy | |  Early Times Report
NEW DELHI, May 2: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has pulled up the Omar Abdullah-led Government in Jammu and Kashmir for 'disallowing' BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar and a host of party supporters from hoisting the national flag in Srinagar's Lal Chowk on Republic Day last year. The NHRC further has asked the State Government to explain within two months why it defied the Constitution.
'Every citizen enjoys the fundamental right to go to Jammu and Kashmir and hoist the national flag in Srinagar on Republic Day. This right is guaranteed by Article 19 of the Constitution. It is not the case of the State Government that the petitioners (BJP) were trying to flout any provision of the Emblems and Names Act 1950 or the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act 1971,' the commission said. It said, "The three leaders were surreptitiously detained at Jammu airport when their chartered flight landed there on the eve of Republic Day. They were to proceed by road to Srinagar to hoist the Tri-colour the next day."
The incident reached a crescendo when Swaraj tweeted: 'Arrested - cars - separate - don't know where to?' They were forcibly escorted away from Jammu and released in Madhopur on the Jammu and Kashmir-Punjab border. A livid Jaitley then claimed that action was illegal, unconstitutional and undemocratic. More than a year later, a full bench of the Human Rights Commission, headed by retired Supreme Court Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, said the State Government violated an apex court order which states that hoisting the national flag was a fundamental right.
Issuing a notice, NHRC asked the State Government to explain within two months why it defied the Constitution. The NHRC said the arrests or preventing anybody wishing to hoist the flag was tantamount to taking away his fundamental right. Pertinent to mention here that party's youth wing, the Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM), had organised the Ekta Yatra (Unity March), a campaign to hoist the Tri-colour at Lal Chowk on January 26. The BJYM president and BJP MP, Anurag Thakur, moved the NHRC following the State Government's highhanded action. Separatist groups in Kashmir Valley and militant organisations had opposed the BJP's campaign and threatened to foil it by any means. The NHRC wanted to know why no action was taken against those who threatened to stop the Ekta Yatra.
The BJP contended that the Ekta Yatra would show the separatists that Kashmir has been and will remain an integral part of India. This was also one way of pitting national sentiments against the separatist discourse as Lal Chowk became a symbol of Kashmiri plebiscite when Jawaharlal Nehru made such as promise there in 1948. Successive Governments in Jammu and Kashmir have used force to prevent hoisting of the Tri-colour at Lal Chowk, citing law and order. A similar ban was enforced last year when Omar Abdullah's Government feared that the BJP's campaign could whip up frenzy among the separatists, who had already vowed a similar counter-march. |
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