SRINAGAR, Dec 29:
The Jammu and Kashmir police today foiled a protest march by Apni Party against the draft proposals of the Delimitation Commission.
Scores of party leaders and activists led by Apni Party chief Altaf Bukhari assembled at the party office at Sheikh Bagh area in Srinagar and tried to take out the march towards Civil Secretariat.
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However, a posse of policemen stopped the protesters just outside the party office and did not allow them to move towards Lal Chowk.
Wearing black masks and bands, the protesters tried to resist the police action, but could not succeed.
The party, however, staged a silent protest march in Jammu and sought the intervention of the central government in the matter which it said “posed a threat to the integrity and soul of our constitution”.
The Apni Party (JKAP) also said the Real Estate Summit held in Jammu recently undermines the domicile law that has been introduced to safeguard the rights of the natives of J-K.
“Such moves require majoritarian consent of the locals which can thereafter be implemented by a government elected by the people,” it said.
The issues were highlighted in a memorandum, addressed to Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, and handed over by the party leaders led by senior vice president Ghulam Hassan Mir to Divisional Commissioner (Jammu) Raghav Langer.
The Delimitation Commission, set up to redraw the assembly seats of the Union territory, is learnt to have proposed six additional seats for Jammu region and one for Kashmir in its ‘Paper 1’ discussed with its five associate members – three parliamentarians of the National Conference and two of the BJP from J-K – in Delhi on December 20.
“The panel report defeats the very idea of a secular India…The party takes a strong exception to such unprincipled edicts that primarily are aimed to disturb the harmony in J-K where people of different religious beliefs and ethnicities have continued to live together in peace,” the party alleged. (PTI)
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