KL Report
New Delhi
In his news conference in Delhi, on Friday, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said his Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) should exist across the LoC and must have stamp of both India and Pakistan. The apparently utopian commission, must have a mandate to investigate almost everything from who started militancy and how many people were killed and how.
Addressing the crowded news conference, Omar ruled out the possibility of any alliance of his NC with BJP. He clarified that NCs presence in the NDA in past was not because of the BJP but because of a leader like Atal Behari Vajpayee. He said he does not see any leader like Vajpayee in the BJP right now so there is no possibility of any kind of relationship in future.
Omar said the overall security situation has improved in Kashmir and the level of violence is barely five percent against what it was in 2002. He said there was not a single attack targeted against the Kashmiri pundits and his government is working to get them back home. He said the prevailing situation is improved and conducive for their return and his government is speaking through its actions and not by making statements.
Asked about inordinate delay in the cabinet expansion, Omar said he will be doing it within minutes once he gets the names from his ally, the Congress. Some of these portfolios, he said, are lying with them simply because no name is being sent by the Congress.
Ruling out the possibility of any 73rd amendment in the panchayat law of the state, Omar said the state law is as good as the law in other states. “It is a matter of evolution,” he said.
When reporters asked him about the militants managing positions in the government, Omar said it might be simply because the CID verifications reach late. Asserting that the militants who renounce militancy must be rehabilitated, Omar said they, at the same time, should not enter high offices. Chief Minister said rehabilitating former militants is vital because otherwise they get recycled. He explained it with the instance of the shooting in Silver Star Hotel in which they were involved.
Chief Minister angrily reacted over the observations of a reporter that he was “selling dreams” by seeking AFSPA revocation and restoration of autonomy. “Why do not you tell PDP which is selling the self rule dream and why do not you tell it to Geelani who is selling much bigger dream of Azadi?” Chief Minister said.
Explaining later, Omar said he was not seeking AFSPA revocation simply because he likes it. It is the ground situation he said. “If you to trust the JKP and CRPF then you have to make changes and roll it from places where it is not needed,” Omar said. “I am seeking its revocation from Jammu, Samba and Srinagar and not from Sopore, Handwara and Tral.”
Omar said that the issue being raised by the NC MP Ghulam Nabi Ratanpuri in the Rajya Sabha is personal. “He has to settle personal scores with one of my officers,” Omar said. “We gave him ample opportunities to sort it out but he is not availing it.”
Ratanpuri had told in the Rajya Sabha that a police officer tried to frame him by planting an IED at his residence. Using this argument, Ratanpuri had questioned the claims of peace in the state and asserted that police and their informers are the dreaded faces of establishment. He was speaking on the amended Unlawful Activities Act that NC supported in lower house and indirectly opposed in Rajya Sabha. Omar, interestingly, could not explain the flip-flop over the law within 20 days in the press conference.
