Stresses the need for taking bold and tangible initiatives to reach out to the people in Jammu and Kashmir
A Akhter /NEW DELHI
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh in New Delhi and discussed prevailing situation in Kashmir valley.
Defence Minister Manohar Parikar, National Security Advisor A K Doval and other senior officials of Home, Defence and Finance ministries, attended the meeting.
She discussed the unrest in Kashmir in the wake of killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani in an encounter with security forces last month.
Talking to media after the meeting, Mehbooba Mufti said, there should be dialogue for peace in the valley and the government should take forward the former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s legacy. She also urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to seize the opportunity created by the unrest to win the hearts of the masses and solve their problems.
Sources said during the meeting Mehbooba Mufti has stressed the need for taking bold and tangible initiatives to reach out to the people in Jammu and Kashmir.
She called for reviving the confidence building and peace process in the State and the region through a productive dialogue process with all shades of the political opinion, as was done by the then NDA government headed by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2003. She said while the problems confronting Jammu and Kashmir could be tackled through short-term economic and developmental initiatives, there has to be a political solution to the problem of Jammu and Kashmir, which could be reached out by involving all the stakeholders in a constructive and result-oriented dialogue process.
Mehbooba said Jammu and Kashmir has been witnessing repeated cycles of deadly violence, and there has to be an end to this vicious cycle of violence, which can be made possible only through a productive dialogue and reconciliation process.
“We saw similar volatile situations in 2008 and 2010, resulting in loss of precious human lives, destruction of public properties and enormous economic drop-down as has happened this time around,” she said and added that there has been mounting cynicism in Kashmir over a period of time as every confidence building process initiated in the past was never followed up with sincerity of purpose.
She said whether it is the Working Group recommendations, reports of All Party Delegations or recommendations of Interlocutors, there has been, unfortunately, no follow-up on the same resulting in cynicism and alienation in Kashmir, especially among the youth.
“I hope the current situation, unlike the past, could be used as an opportunity to reach out to the people in Jammu and Kashmir through tangible confidence building initiatives and provide the much-needed healing touch to them to tide over the trust-deficit,” she said.
As many as 55 persons including two police personnel have been killed and several thousand others injured in the violent protests since 9th of last month.