By IANS,
New Delhi : Apparently targetting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress Thursday said the Amarnath land controversy that has led to unrest in Jammu and Kashmir was “manufactured” to damage the secular fabric of the country.
“The situation in Jammu and Kashmir is dangerous. The BJP should rein in the agitation in national interest,” Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natarajan said here.
“The most tragic aspect is that the controversy is based on a false and irrelevant issue and created by forces for whom personal interest is above the interest of people and nation,” Natarajan said.
She said the “economic blockade” in Kashmir during the agitation over revocation of land allotted to the shrine board provided an opportunity to foreign forces to hinder the growth of the country.
Lauding the efforts of authorities for successfully holding the yatra to the Amarnath cave shrine despite the agitation, Natarajan said: “Over 500,000 pilgrims visited the Amarnath shrine this year, which is a record in the last 20 years.”
“This year’s yatra was conducted in spite of the ongoing agitation in Kashmir as well as in Jammu. The yatra was not disturbed at any time in any way and there were no major reports of yatris being inconvenienced,” Natarajan added.
Commenting on the Delhi High Court verdict against lawyer and Congress party member R.K. Anand for bribing a witness in the BMW hit and run case, Natarajan said: “The matter has been sent to the party disciplinary committee and they will take a decision.”
Anand had contested on a Congress ticket from South Delhi in the 2004 Lok Sabha polls but lost.