By IRNA,
Srinagar, India : A top pro-India leader has cautioned New Delhi against allowing the ongoing peaceful movement in Kashmir to slide back into a whirlpool of violence for its ‘inability’ to respond to the new situation.
“Kashmir should not be allowed to slide back into a whirlpool of violence simply for inability to respond to the new situation of opportunity thrown up by the return of political movement here into a non violent mode,” said Mufti Muhammad Sayeed, leader of Peoples Democratic Party and former home minister of India.
“The reiteration of peaceful approach by Kashmiris,” he said, “should be recognized as their strength.”
He added, “Unfortunately in the past it had been misconstrued as their weakness leading to severe distortions in our relationship with the federation.
“That would never again be allowed by the people, as was demonstrated by recent events.”
Mufti said the vicious bomb attacks in New Delhi and Islamabad which caused scores of innocent deaths need to be seen in the larger perspective of Kashmir having decisively rejected violence as a tool of political emancipation.
That, he said is necessary because the State has historically been viewed as the ground zero of political instability in post independence subcontinent.
Paying tributes to the civilizational value system of Kashmir, Mufti said that it was this strength that had inspired Kashmir to show the way to the subcontinent yet again even though its own body remained mired in pain and agony.
“And, this glowing reality of Kashmir needs not just to be acknowledged by the people and governments of two countries but respected and responded to,” he asserted.
Mufti said at a time when forces of destabilization, disruption and hate were creating havoc from Kabul to Kolkata, Kashmir had resurged with its timeless message of tolerance and civilized conduct to express its aspirations.
While the people in general deserve credit for this, the leaders of the present campaign have a prominent role in keeping it peaceful.
The PDP patron said it was in nobody’s interest to delay a bold and imaginative response to the new scenario in the State.
The internal frictions within the State would also dilute once a broad and visionary roadmap is devised and implemented which caters to the internal and external dimensions of the problem, he added.
Reacting to reports about the Indo-Pak meeting of the joint working group on cross LoC trade, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said that this makes a good beginning and expressed strong hope that the leaders of the two countries will make a formal announcement on opening of cross LoC trade routes when they meet on the sidelines of United Nations General Council meeting at New York next week.
Mufti said that Kashmir had suffered for long on account of severe restrictions on travel along its natural routes impeding its socio- economic progress.
It is time now, he urged that we build effectively on the 2005 initiative and free Kashmir of its decades old feeling of siege.