The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

Wednesday, July 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India

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Advani rules out division of J & K
Adjournment motion on Qasim Nagar massacre defeated
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 16
Even as Opposition-sponsored adjournment motion to discuss the July 13 terrorist massacre at Qasim Nagar, near Jammu, and the failure of the Centre to combat cross-border terrorism was today defeated in the Lok Sabha by a voice vote after the entire Opposition had staged walkout, the Vajpayee government firmly rejected the trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir as demanded by the RSS.

Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, Union HRD Minister M. M. Joshi and Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh at a BJP Parliamentary Committee meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday.
— PTI photo

Replying to the Opposition’s adjournment motion, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani announced that BJP General Secretary and former Law Minister Arun Jaitley will hold talks with Jammu and Kashmir Government and political parties there on the issue of devolution of greater powers to the state.

Making the Centre’s stand on trifurcation of the Jammu and Kashmir, the Deputy Prime Minister said there was no question of trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir and justice would be done to all areas of the state. Even during the time of the erstwhile Jana Sangh, we had never supported this view.

Mr Advani said it was not the first time that this matter had been heard of and at one time there was a proposal to incorporate Jammu in Himachal Pradesh but this, too, was not supported by the Jana Sangh.

India would fight its own battle against terrorism without any outside support, Mr Advani said.

“We will fight our battle against terrorism on our own strength,” Mr Advani said in his reply to an over six-hour debate in the Lok Sabha on the recent massacre in Jammu.

Firmly ruling out any third-party mediation to resolve the Kashmir issue, Mr Advani asserted that India would have to fight its own battle against terrorism being sponsored from across the border.

Mr Advani said a perceptible change had occurred in the world community’s view on global terrorism since the September 11 terror strike.

No big nation was ready to blame Pakistan for fomenting terrorism and just said they wanted terrorism in India to end, he said, adding now their views had changed.

Referring to the Jammu massacre, Mr Advani said “we will not allow terrorists to claim they had emerged victor after carrying out such dastardly attacks.”

He said Pakistan’s “evil design” on Kashmir was because of the fact that it had never been able to reconcile the state’s accession to India.

Stating that he shared concern of members on the continued forward deployment of troops on the border with Pakistan, Mr Advani said “we have been fighting this war for the past 20 years”.

Referring to several members’ view that the government should not trust the USA in the fight against terrorism because in Washington’s assessment President Pervez Musharraf was their “best bet”, Mr Advani said New Delhi would continue to “mount diplomatic pressure” on the world community against Pakistan in this regard.