Jalandhar, April 27
Justifying the healing touch to win over people of the state Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed today revealed that two-pronged strategy fighting militancy and development via tourism — was being followed towards normalisation in the state.

The Mufti stated that the state was fast moving to normalcy as despite All-Party Hurriyat Conference (APHC) boycott call and militants threat nearly 40000 people attended the rally addressed by the Prime Minister.

Rejecting the criticism of the state government’s decision not to implement POTA, the Chief Minister said that the state government was committed to fight militancy as the existing laws had provisions to deal with anti-national elements.

The Mufti speaking at the Shaheed Parivar Fund function organised by the Hind Samachar Group of newspapers here, said, “In fact, the state government is preparing a comprehensive policy to promote tourism and hotel industry in the valley since economic development is the only way to make youth join the normalisation process in the present context. Besides, we will soon launch a campaign to attract domestic and foreign tourists since the state is fast moving towards peace and isolated incidents of militancy can’t be projected as major threat to peace.”

Elaborating the Mufti said, “Promoting tourism in the valley is the only way to extend one-to-one contact with people of other states, who still are believing that Kashmiris are living under the shadow of the gun which is no more the case.”

He invited business community of the country to organise conferences and events in Kashmir to help start economic development process in the state.

Former police chief, Punjab K.P.S. Gill, said that strong political will was must to curb any form of militancy and it was commendable that major political parties of the country had arrived at consensus to deal with terror in the valley.

On recent attacks of militants on civilians, Mr Gill termed it frustration of militants supported by Pakistan and these could not halt the peace process in the state because the people there were not supporting them. Union Minister of State for Defence, Chaman Lal Gupta assured cooperation to the J&K Government to curb militancy. “It is said that the militants responsible for the killing of innocent people are getting bails due to the non-implementation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in the state”, he said and demanded that POTA should be implemented in the state.

Mr Mangat Ram Sharma, Deputy Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, alleged that some opposition leaders were misinterpreting the ‘healing touch policy’ of the Mufti government. “Healing touch policy is the best way to win confidence of the people and even the Prime Minister at a rally praised the policy” he added.