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‘No discussion on status of Kashmir’
Core issue PoK not Kashmir: Krishnamurthy

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, June 23: The Bha-ratiya Janta Party (BJP) president, Jana Krishnamurthy today made it clear that core issue in the purposed summit talks between Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf will be Pak occupied Kashmir (PoK), and not Kashmir.

Addressing a public meeting organised by the State unit of the BJP to celebrate ‘Balidan Diwas’ of late Dr. Shyama Prashad Mukherjee at Zanana Park this afternoon, Krishnamurthy ruled out the possibility of discussing the present status of Kashmir and said that Vajpayee Government will stick to the unanimous resolution passed by the Parliament regarding liberation of the PoK.

Putting at rest all apprehensions regarding agenda of the proposed summit, the BJP chief clarified that whatsoever may be the agenda of the meeting but one thing was clear that no compromise will be made on integration and unity of the country. "Solving of Kashmir problem does not mean giving any part of the State to Pakistan", he said, adding, "not even an inch of our Kashmir will be given to Pakistan".

"Invitation to Pakistani ruler does not mean that we will discuss only Kashmir. There are many other issues which remain in focus in the proposed meeting between the two leaders", he said.

He said that India has fought three wars over Kashmir and the country was still sacrificing for the same so there was no question of donating even an inch of Indian land to anybody. " Hum Dan Nahin Balidan Denge", he stressed.

The BJP chief recalled the earlier stand taken by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee on Kashmir when he had visited Pakistan in 1977 as Foreign Minister. "We will stick to our earlier stand and there is no question of diluting it", he said and recounted sacrifices made by the Praja Parishad, Jan Sangh and BJP workers for complete unification of Jammu and Kashmir with rest of India.

"As long as Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee and Mr Lal Krishan Advani are at the helm of the affairs one should not be worried about future of Kashmir", he assured, adding, "duo is follower of Dr Shyama Prashad Mukherjee who had made supreme sacrifice for the complete integration of Kashmir with India".

"The first martyr of independent India was Dr Shyama Prashad Mukherjee who had laid down his life for Kashmir", he said while paying tributes to great leader who was founder of the Jan Sangh. Recounting incident regarding mysterious death of Mukherjee, BJP chief lamented that even after 50 years of his death successive State and Central governments have failed to ascertain real cause of demise of great son of Bharat Mata.

"Dr Mukherjee had quit power and started campaign for the complete merger of Kashmir with India", he said and recounted how Dr Mukherjee had entered Jammu and Kashmir from Lakhanpur with out permit and subsequently arrested by the then State Government. He demanded a thorough probe into the death of great leader under mysterious circumstances.

Admitting that successive State Governments have meted out step motherly treatment to Jammu and Ladakh regions, Mr Krishnamurthy exhorted people to vote BJP candidates in the forthcoming assembly elections and teach a lesson to ruling National Conference to end the dominance of Kashmir over both the regions of the State.

Prof Om Parkash Kohli, national general secretary and incharge BJP Jammu and Kashmir, in his address, said that unequal development and mis-governance were the real cause of the Kashmir problem. Without naming National Conference, Prof Kohli said that those who have been demanding autonomy or raising other such issues were only befooling the masses.

Regarding agenda of the proposed Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting, Mr Kohli reaffirmed that Jammu and Kashmir was an integral part of India and during the talks, Prime Minister will reclaim the illegally held PoK from Pakistan.

He lamented that there are certain elements within the country which were working on the instance of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence but added that these anti-national elements will never succeed in their nefarious designs.

Union Civil Aviation Minister and member of Parliament from Kathua-Udhampur constituency Prof Chaman Lal Gupta, while addressing the gathering, accused the National Conference Government of being insensitive towards problems of general masses in Jammu and Kashmir."Instead of concentrating on development of the State, ruling National Conference is raising irrelevant issues like autonomy which have nothing to do with welfare of people," he said.

Alleging discrimination with Jammu and Ladakh regions by the successive State Government, Prof Gupta said that despite maximum revenue collection from Jammu, the region has been neglected in developmental activities by the Kashmiri rulers.

Senior BJP leader and member of Parliament from Jammu-Poonch constituency Vaid Vishnu Dutt, in his address, charged the Farooq Abdullah Government with its failure on all fronts and called upon people to teach a lesson to the ruing National Conference in the forthcoming assembly elections.

BJP State unit president Mr Daya Krishan Kotwal, while paying tributes to Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, pledged that his party will continue its fight against the secessionist forces within the country and also expose the nefarious designs of ruling National Conference.

Others who addressed the gathering included MLA Udhampur Lala Shiv Charan Gupta, MLA Jammu (East) Mr Ashok Khajuria, MLA Jammu (West) Mr Hans Raj Dogra, MLA Gandhi Nagar Choudhary Piara Singh, Chandermohan Sharma and Kashmira Singh.

Earlier, Mr Jana Krishnamurthy was garlanded and presented a sword by BJP State unit president Mr D K Kotwal on his arrival at the public meeting.

Interestingly, to give an impression of unity in the faction ridden Pradesh BJP, MLA Jammu (East) Mr Ashok Khajuria and MLA Jammu (West) Hans Raj Dogra presented traditional turbans to Prof Chaman Lal Gupta and Vaid Vishnu Dutt, respectively. However, the public meeting was marked with slogans and counter slogans of both the faction in Pradesh BJP in support of their leaders.

‘Pak has no ideological base in Kashmir’
Omar wants J&K polls under US supervision

From Ahmed Ali Fayaz

SRINAGAR, June 23: Son of the Jammu & Kashmir chief Minister Dr Farooq Abdullah and the Union Minister of State for Commerce & Industries, Omar Abdullah, today favoured the Hurriyat-sponsored suggestion of elections under the world supervision. It’s right time to ascertain, once for all, as to who exactly are the real representatives of the people of Jammu & Kashmir, he said.

In an exclusive interview to EXCELSIOR, Omar Abdullah claimed that Pakistan had no ideological base even in the Muslim-dominated Kashmir valley. He said that nobody other than Jamaat-e-Islami and its leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was in favour of the state’s separation from India and its accession to Pakistan. While claiming that only three Hurriyat leaders — Mirwaiz Omar Farooq, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Abdul Gani Lone — were commanding support "in few areas of Kashmir valley", Omar Abdullah said that Hurriyat as an amalgamation was no political entity.

"We must admit that Mirwaiz Umar has a good number of supporters in Srinagar downtown. But the fact is that they are all his supporters by faith and religion. History has seen them all welcoming Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai at the Mirwaiz Manzil. They are never Pakistan’s or India’s supporters. Tomorrow, if the Mirwaiz will turn to India, it would not take them a second to become Indians", Omar Abdullah said and asserted that it was only his father’s National Conference which has a massive support base in all the three regions of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh. He admitted that Mr Abdul Gani Lone had a base in "one or two segments of north Kashmir".

Why then total shutdown on Hurriyat’s call in Valley? "A Hartal is no yardstick to measure your influence in the people", he quipped. "They (Hurriyat leaders) are living today because of the Government’s security and bullet-proof cars. Don’t you see how much protection they request when they have to convene a meeting. Didn’t you see our Police guarding them at Prof Gani’s house?", he argued.

When it was pointed out to the YNS leader that there was serious threat perception to the separatist activists even from the pro-Government militants, he asserted: "That is all propaganda. They have one-odd threat and that is from the people". He said that people were certainly silent due to the fear of the militants’ gun but they were witnessing well how the Hurriyat leaders had made fortunes for themselves and their own children and how the poor Kashmiri was being ruined in the name of Jihad and Azadi.

Omar claimed that the Hurriyat leaders were not only demanding more and more Government security but they were also after mundane privileges like transfers of officials and allotment of contracts. As this writer pointed out to Omar that NC leaders too were living because of Police guards and paramilitary escorts, he said that militants were eliminating all soft targets. "On the other hand, Hurriyat leaders are being protected by both Indian as well as Pakistani governments. Every day one or two of them are seen visting Pakistan and spewing the worst possible venom against India".

Terming all but three Hurriyat functionaries as "Mohalla leaders", Omar Abdullah said that they would all contest the elections but they had nothing in hand to show. "Once they are seen in the fray, they will be asked how they had got killed 70,000 Kashmiris", he said. He referred to Democratic Freedom Party chief Shabir Shah’s recent statements and said that the one time Azadi activist was finally in favour of elections under the auspices of Indian intellectuals. Same would be the Hurriyat’s language soon, he said and claimed that all separatist groups and leaders had become irrelevent in the wake of the forthcoming Vajpayee-Musharraf talks.

Asked for his reaction to the Hurriyat suggestion that elections be held in the State under the supervision of some world body "so as to identify the real representatives of the people", Omar asserted: " Let me tell you frankly, I am in favour of holding such elections under the world supervision. Let USA and George Bush observe the same. It is right time that representatives of the people be chosen through an undisputed, fair and transparent exercise. Had it been within my competence, I would have ordered the same next moment. But, the problem is that the Government of India perceives such a proposal as an unconstitutional referendum". He asserted that the question of leadership should be settled once for all.

Omar, however, laid one condition that all militants, Policemen and security forces personnel must clear the field before such an electoral exercise and emphasised that it was his "personal opinion".

The 32-year-old young leader sought to clarify that he was in no hurry to succeed his father as the state’s Chief Minister. He said that Dr Abdullah was in Europe on a private tour but mediapersons were making wild speculative—including the one that Omar was being trained into the State politics and administration. Asked why the father-son duo in NC had predicted mid-term polls and asked the cadres to brace up for elections, Omar said that it was all to break the ice and set into motion a chain of political activity in Kashmir.

He said that, immediately after the prediction, a large number of NC as well as Opposition leaders, organised public meetings and toured even the most distant localities. Having organised 30 public meetings and inaugurations in 22 days, he was himself on third consecutive tour of the Valley. He said that during the unilateral ceasefire, militants had spread terror and established base in most areas of Kashmir valley and the mainstream political activity had become the most glaring casualty.