Panun Kashmir asks Centre to revisit its Kashmir policy

Panun KashmiJAMMU: Insisting that India’s policy towards Jammu and Kashmir has not borne any fruit, Panun Kashmir, an organization for displaced Kashmiri Pandits, today appealed to the Centre to recast it.

“There seems to be deadly indifference in the Government of India to the regular and consistent failures of its policy on Jammu and Kashmir,” Panun Kashmir Chairman Ajay Chrungu, told reporters here.

He also urged the government to abandon back channel diplomacy with Pakistan and separatists as it promotes “subversive” thinking.

“We demand that Government of India should abandon all back channel maneuvers with Pakistan and the separatists in the state. Back channel diplomacy is essentially un-democratic and extra-constitutional in nature,” Churungu said.

“The cycles of back channel diplomacy on J-K have been invariably accompanied by a flip in subversive activities from within. It is high time GoI makes the content and conduct of its diplomatic measures transparent and accountable,” he insisted.

“Almost always when the government claims that anti-national forces are losing on the ground, it itself comes out with policy declarations which bring the separatist cause to the centre stage, undermines the security operations against terrorism and the peoples resistance against separatism in the state,” he alleged.

Emphasizing the increase in terrorist activities in the state in past couple of months, Churungu said that an “untrue” peace prevailed in the Valley.

“The recent spurt of violence inside Kashmir shows how fragile and untrue is the peace and normalcy, which both the governments in the state and in the Centre tom-tom every now and then,” he said.

Pointing out at the recent killing of LeT commander Hilal Ahmed, who hailed from Pattan area of Kashmir, in an encounter in Srinagar, Chrungu said: “The terrorist violence has shown that the leaders of terrorist organizations are locals and not always the foreign mercenaries, which the GoI wants people of the country to believe.”

“We believe that the situation in the state has in fact deteriorated and the separatist and fundamental forces are ruling the roost,” he said, adding, terrorist organizations like LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen were still active in the state.

Churugu, meanwhile, cautioned against the change of guard in the Pakistan.

He pointed to the statement made by Pakistan’s nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan that they have got enough nuclear potential to destroy India within minutes.

Chrungu was also critical of the state’s rehabilitation policy for terrorists and said it always promoted a threat of “recycling of terrorism”.

“Is there any mechanism by which the government can judge whether there is a change of heart?” he asked.-PTI