KL Desk
Srinagar
National Conference leader and Member of Parliament, Ghulam Nabi Ratanpuri has welcomed the move of Defence Minister A K Anthony asking army to file a report about firing on civilians at Chandgam and Nownagri and subsequently on the vehicle carrying an injured youth to hospital at Pulwama. He has urged upon the Minister to fix the responsibility and punish the guilty.
The MP, in a statement, said that concern for Human Rights shouldn’t be selective and Government of India should be equally sensitive to Human Rights violations in any part of the country and ensure justice to all communities and sections of society however small a minority they may be or however weak their voice may be. “A message should go that human life is as precious at Pulwama as it is at India Gate”, demanded Ratanpuri.
The MP denounced the role of district police, before and after the firing incident of Dec 28 and said that if Army firing in Pulwama town was really to clear the way for their ambulance, it could have been averted by ensuring a safe passage for the approaching ambulance in advance, in Pulwama market, where traffic jams are a routine.
Ratanpuri demanded that the security personnel responsible for excesses, damage to the property of shopkeepers and residentiall and commercial buildings in Pulwama, in the aftermath of firing should be punished. He said that Pulwama youth has been brutalised by the excesses of last two decades and excessive use of force continues.
“The tormentors-criminals who instigate the innocent and gullible young boys to violence face no action as they are reported to be “police assets” while the tormented boys face persecution”, he said while demanding that cases against young students, as announced by the Chief Minister, should be withdrawn without further delay.
The Member of Parliament said that like any other resident of the district, he is curious to know why and for what outstanding performance S P Pulwama is showered with awards and rewards. “Corruption in police has flourished, drug/timber/land mafia are more powerful than ever and for every action against these mafia a hundred criminal activities of theirs are ignored”, he said.
Ratanpuri lamented that his repeated representations for early construction of Pulwama circular road to solve the problem of traffic jams in town have not yielded the desired results.
“Pulwama continues to get lowest per capita plan allocation, perhaps lower than any of the remaining districts of J&K and it does not specifically figure in any of the achievements of the government, appearing in the newspapers today. 228 decisions in 35 Cabinet meetings and Pulwama is nowhere. Many Water supply schemes inaugurated but, WSS for Pulwama is in limbo for the lat six years. Many receiving and Grid stations inaugurated but, Pulwama continues to have the lowest ratio in installed distribution capacity to agreemented load”, Ratanpuri lamented.
He said that not a single penny has been spent under CRF for the last 65 years in Pulwama while hundreds of crores have been spent elsewhere. “Why not a single project worth mention in the list of achievements of the government has been taken up in Pulwama”, the MP asked.
He regretted that decisions taken nearly three years ago in the DDB meeting, with the Chief Minister in chair, are yet to be implemented. He said that the Chief Minister, in his first mammoth public meeting in Pulwama on 13/09/2012, chose to discuss not Pulwama but, Machhil and asked us to be thankful for having black topped roads while Machhil had none.
Machhil, the MP said, was comparable to Leh fifty years ago, while Leh according to some has turned into London, Pulwama is asked to be thankful for not having turned into Machhil as yet. What could be more disappointing, the MP asked.
