J A M M U   &   K A S H M I R

Hurriyat flays CM’s remarks on Geelani
Srinagar, March 25
The Hurriyat Conference has termed as “utter buffoonery” Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s remarks on recent hospitalisation of former Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani and alleged that the police had compelled doctors to discharge the ailing leader.

Geelani’s stand worries Hurriyat
New Delhi, March 25
Firebrand Jamaat-e-Islamia leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s flip-flop stand on the Kashmir issue has caused a lot of problems for the Hurriyat Conference both within the state and in the international arena, insiders in the conference said here.

Expose casts shadow on J&K
New Delhi
Whatever else the Tehelka expose may or may not have achieved, one thing appears to be clear: policy-makers in New Delhi at most levels have put the crisis in Kashmir on the back burner.

BJP men burn Sonia’s effigy
Jammu, March 25
The Tehelka expose seems to have brought the state units of the BJP and the Congress out of their “slumber.” In reply to a protest the Congress staged here three days ago, in which effigies of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the former BJP chief Bangaru Laxman, were set ablaze, BJP workers held protest rally here today shouting “chor machai shor”.

Hurriyat flays CM’s remarks on Geelani

Srinagar, March 25
The Hurriyat Conference has termed as “utter buffoonery” Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah’s remarks on recent hospitalisation of former Hurriyat Chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani and alleged that the police had compelled doctors to discharge the ailing leader.

“To say that the senior Hurriyat leader shammed cardiac pain and got himself admitted to hospital is utter buffoonery,” a spokesman of the Hurriyat Conference said in a statement here yesterday.

The Chief Minister recently said “given his (Geelani’s) gimmicks, nobody will believe him when he really falls sick.”

Mr Geelani was admitted to Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences at Soura on March 17 after he was allegedly manhandled by the police outside his residence and was discharged on March 20.

The Hurriyat spokesman said Mr Geelani was a chronic heart patient and had a pacemaker implanted in his chest for the past two years.

He alleged that the police had “forced doctors to discharge him though he was not fully recovered.”

The spokesman dismissed government’s statement that Mr Geelani’s personal assistant Mohammad Yousuf Mujahid was once a militant commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen.

Mujahid had not been associated with any militant group since his release from jail in 1997 and was a full-time member of the Hurriyat Conference, he said. PTI

Geelani’s stand worries Hurriyat

New Delhi, March 25
Firebrand Jamaat-e-Islamia leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s flip-flop stand on the Kashmir issue has caused a lot of problems for the Hurriyat Conference both within the state and in the international arena, insiders in the conference said here.

Mr Geelani, who has become suddenly vocal after the Hurriyat conference appointed him the leader of the delegation for holding talks with the military regime and militant outfits in Pakistan, has been talking of inevitability of Kashmir’s annexation to Pakistan.

“Kashmir is a religious issue and not a political one,” the fire-brand Jamaat leader had said recently in Srinagar though the very next day he changed his stand in an interview to the BBC’s Urdu service, saying that “the issue needs to be solved through political means.”

The earlier statement of Mr Geelani found no takers in the entire 23-party conglomerate of secessionist and religious groups and all leaders dismissed this as his personal views.

Hurriyat insiders believe that Mr Geelani’s rigid stand has put spokes in the peace process initiated by the government.

They say Mr Geelani, whose criticism of Pakistan during the Kargil war had invited the wrath of militant groups, has again become their “heart-throb” and outfits like the Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT), the Hizbul Mujahideen, the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the Al-Badar were extending full support to him. “We can do nothing against him as he has boys on his side and they call the shots,” Hurriyat insiders said. PTI

Expose casts shadow on J&K
M.L. Kotru

New Delhi
Whatever else the Tehelka expose may or may not have achieved, one thing appears to be clear: policy-makers in New Delhi at most levels have put the crisis in Kashmir on the back burner.

That politicians of various hues being involved in shenanigans is understandable, what causes worry is that the exposures have taken the country’s security apparatus, including some retired and serving civil and military officials, into their embrace. The latter half of the story is most disturbing and to that extent one has to be grateful to the Army chief and the command structure as a whole to have decided on quick remedial action to minimise the effect of the disclosures on the morale of the armed forces.

What’s happening in the meantime in Kashmir is not particularly reassuring. The Pakistan-sponsored jehadis have shown scant regard for the extended ceasefire declared by New Delhi nor do they seem to be concerned about the continuing misery their depredations are imposing on the lives of the ordinary Kashmiris, be it in the valley or in Poonch, Doda or Rajouri.

On the other hand they seem only more determined than before to step up the frequency of their so-called suicide (fidayeen) attacks directed mainly at military and paramilitary targets. That many civilians also get killed in the process, particularly when grenades are lobbed at the security forces posted in densely populated civilian areas, is of no relevance to the jehadis.

The danger lies not so much in the heightened terrorist activity, which evidently is taking a heavy toll of human lives, but in New Delhi’s indecisiveness about how to deal with it.

Unfortunately, the prevailing uncertainty in New Delhi appears to have created a sense of listlessness at decision-making levels. Many self-serving segments of opinion do not seem to tire of repeating General Padmanbhan’s earlier statement that the problem in Kashmir is of a political nature and not a military one.

In such a situation New Delhi’s ceasefire in the state acquires inexplicable dimensions. First and foremost, is the question of the morale of the security forces, which are under orders not to fire back until they are fired upon. This in effect means that they must wait and watch till a three-man or a four-men fidayeen group enters their encampment and starts shooting and only then they may react. Seems an exaggeration, but this is actually what it amounts to.

Considering that the political clouds hovering over New Delhi may take some time to lift, the government should order the forces to take whatever professional steps they deem necessary to counter the growing menace of suicide attacks. The air of laxity if allowed to grow by the government in the state is likely to take a heavy toll of the morale of the security forces and the civilian population.

If the ceasefire was intended to give the people in Kashmir a respite, that’s not happening. ADNI

BJP men burn Sonia’s effigy
Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 25
The Tehelka expose seems to have brought the state units of the BJP and the Congress out of their “slumber.” In reply to a protest the Congress staged here three days ago, in which effigies of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the former BJP chief Bangaru Laxman, were set ablaze, BJP workers held protest rally here today shouting “chor machai shor”.

The protest rally was organised by BJP MLA Hans Raj Dogra and the party activists and supporters were aboard scores of cars and scooters carrying the effigy of Sonia Gandhi, Congress President. The demonstrators protesting against the Congress hand in engineering the Tehelka expose carried out a “mock” execution of Ms Sonia Gandhi. Her effigy was “hanged from the flyover” till it dropped on the road.

The BJP circulated posters in which the Congress regimes, since the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, had been blamed for several scams. The posters referred to jeep, Bofors, sugar, JMM and other scandals and dubbed the Congress as the “villain of the piece.”

Committee for return of migrants to valley
Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 25
An action committee for return of migrants to Kashmir valley has been formed to chalk out a strategy for achieving the aim of restoring to the valley its secular character and social ethos.

According to the chairman of the committee, Mr Jatinder Bakshi, the first step in this direction would be in shape of a conference which would be held in Delhi where a consensus could be evolved on the pattern that needed to be adopted to ensure honourable return of migrants to the valley.

Mr Bakshi said creating a conducive atmosphere for return of the displaced families, prominent political leaders, intellectuals and religious leaders from the majority community in the valley have to be taken into confidence.

Mr Bakshi had involved number of senior Muslim leaders, including Dr Mehboob Beg, a former minister and National Conference leader and Mr M. Hussain of Srinagar. Several Pandit and Muslim intellectuals residing in several foreign countries too, were being involved in the programme of creating conditions of return for the displaced people.

The committee had been assured of all possible assistance by the Union Minister of State for Commerce, Mr Omar Abdullah and other prominent intellectuals and journalists in Delhi.

Mr Bakshi and Dr Beg said for preserving and promoting secular and democratic traditions in the country, it was necessary to restore to Kashmir which had lost its spirit of peaceful coexistence after the minorities and a big section of the majority had to leave the valley after the rise of militancy in 1990.

They said the state and the central governments should also contribute their efforts for encouraging the committee to realise its dream of seeing peace and communal amity restored to Kashmir. In this connection several NGOs, too, were to be approached for assistance and guidance they added.