KL Report
Srinagar
Member of Parliament, G N Ratanpuri Friday called upon the Government of India to revisit its Kashmir policy.
“An influential section of establishment in Delhi has a say in Kashmir affairs. This section has personal interests and personal scores to settle and their opinion can more often than not be biased”, he said while speaking in the Rajya Sabha today.
He demanded that this section should be disassociated from Kashmir affairs even if it is on experimental basis. He expected that such a move will definitely yield positive results.
“Let us tell everybody that Kashmir is not a colony and it is a part of the world’s largest democracy. Let us treat Kashmir as any other part of the country and every Kashmiri as any other citizen of India”, the Member said.
While participating in a special debate in the Rajya Sabha on the World Women’s day today, he said “Whenever there is an optimistic atmosphere in Jammu & Kashmir and people look forward to a new chapter of peace, harmony and cordial relations with the Centre something from New Delhi derails the whole process and the atmosphere is taken over by mistrust, gloom, desperation and helplessness”.
He expressed satisfaction on the fact that women all over the country and even in the most oppressive society steadily empowered but lamented that in Jammu & Kashmir, the women are being disempowered, dishonoured, humiliated and dehumanise.
He referred to the mention of pepper spray by women for their own protection and told the House that how ironical it is that in his state pepper grenades are used against women. “Reports of elderly asthma patients including women having died due to suffocation, as a result use of these grenades have appeared in media”.
He said that thousands of men have died in Jammu & Kashmir in the last 22 years and they have left behind in much larger numbers their sisters, their daughters, their mothers and their wives to suffer for rest of their lives.
He told the House that J & K has larger percentage of destitute women and appealed all the Members of the House to try and feel the pain of Kashmir. He said that a needle prick in any part sends a signal of pain throughout the body and how come that
“Atoot Ang” of the Nation bleeds and the nation cannot feel the pain.
It is pertinent to mention that as the Prime Minister had to reply to the debate on President’s address soon father, he along with most of the Ministers, leader of opposition Sh. Arun Jaitly and most of the leaders form political parties and Members of Parliament were present in the house, when GN Ratanpuri was speaking. The Vice President, who is the Chairman of the House, was in Chair
