By Agence India Press,Bureau Report
Srinagar: Peoples Democratic Party has said even as the present scenario in Kashmir looked extremely dark it could still be turned around through positive and purposeful intervention. This view emerged at a meeting of party legislators, senior leaders and office bearers held here today under the president ship of party patron Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.
According to a spokesman of the party it was the general feeling among the participants during the discussion that the situation in the state had shown a steady drift and deterioration over the past one and a half years. Even as voices of caution and concern were raised no attention was paid to these in a display of arrogance and ignorance. But the party felt that even though feelings were deeply hurt, tempers ran high, governments at the centre and state had failed to respond with compassion to a highly painful situation. The situation calls immediate intervention at the level of the prime minister which could be perceived as a dignified and serious by the people in order to defuse the tension on ground. Any further delay in reaching out to the people and understanding their sentiment could make retrieval that much more difficult, it was felt.
Party leaders, according to spokesman shared the view that the people of the state and especially Kashmir valley had become victims of a callous administration that had failed to handle the situation with any empathy or compassion. The administration had been cautioned by no less a person than the prime minister himself during his June visit about its failures in addressing even the basic people’s problems. Having failed in performing its duties, the government used brute force to douse the anger among masses that were forced to come out on streets. Not knowing how to respond to this crisis, the government began by discovering imaginary enemies and instead of putting its act together used more force to silence protests which led to the worst human rights disaster resulting in scores of teenage deaths even as cases of fake encounters, disappearances, killings by ‘unknown gunmen’ and random atrocities kept stalking the land.
Expressing deep sympathy and solidarity with the victims of violence, the PDP leaders said the government had tried to redirect the guilt of its atrocities to victims by calling the protestors as paid agents or labeling these deaths as suicides. Instead of acknowledging the sentiment, accepting its mistakes and trying to rectify them, the ruling coalition kept parroting just one sentence: no threat to government, no change in leadership.
Describing this attitude as totally inept, the speakers pointed out that the failure to govern had spawned such insecurity among the ruling clique that instead of trying to provide relief to the victims of its disastrous performance it busied itself in raising political bunkers for its survival even while filling jails with teenaged youth and the aged leaders. An entire population has been imprisoned and left unattended which has led to an unprecedented collapse of administration and a total erosion of faith in the system.
The childish response of the ruling national conference to the current crisis also came in for discussion in the backdrop of mounting problems of the people. According to the spokesman, the party leaders dismissed the issues like corruption and change of leadership raised by the government as a mere gimmick to divert the attention from the ground situation. The fact is that the government has failed in all aspects of governance and rampant corruption is one manifest front, the recent formal probe ordered by the Chief Minister against half of his cabinet further questions the credibility of this government.
Calling for an end to repressive measures in place now, the party stressed sincere efforts to create an atmosphere for resolution of Kashmir problem. The leaders according to spokesman were unanimous in voicing their concern over the lack of appreciation of ground realities in Kashmir but hoped that the current situation and the tragedies caused by it would bring home the realization that the problem would not go away by denying its existence. They called for an end to indiscriminate arrest of youth, use of force and undeclared and declared curfew as a preferred policy of the state so as to try and create an atmosphere conducive to resolution.