*Rajnath briefs PM, HS reviews security
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Sept 6: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top brass of Central Government and BJP today reviewed security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, a day after All Party Delegation (APD) returned to New Delhi from two-day visit to the State amid reports that the Centre was mulling stringent action against those fuelling unrest in the Valley but, simultaneously, would go ahead with the dialogue process, set into motion with the visits of Home Minister Rajnath Singh and APD to J&K, with the forces of peace and evolve a strategy to engage youth.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who headed 27-member delegation to Jammu and Kashmir, which returned to the Union capital late last evening, today briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi about situation prevailing in the State and discussed with him the steps taken and being taken to control nearly two-month long unrest, which has taken 75 lives and left nearly 10,000 others injured, half of them para-military and police personnel.
“The Prime Minister and the Home Minister were together for about an hour during which Rajnath was reported to have briefed Modi about the visit of the APD to Jammu and Kashmir, approach to separatists by some delegation members in their individual capacity, their refusal to talk, visible hand of Pakistan, militants and some vested interests in fueling unrest and all other aspects of the situation,” official sources told the Excelsior.
After the meeting, Rajnath tweeted: “briefed the Prime Minister on All Party Delegation’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir and also apprised him of the situation in the State”.
The Home Minister has called the meeting of all APD members at 11 am tomorrow at the Parliament Hall to take their observations on J&K situation and brief them about the measures the Government of India was going to take to control unrest in the Valley. The Government would announce its next course of action after tomorrow’s meeting.
Sources said Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, BJP president Amit Shah and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Dr Jitendra Singh met for more than one and a half hour in New Delhi this evening and discussed threadbare the measures the Government would take to restore peace in the Valley. BJP general secretary, Ram Madhav joined the meeting later as he was party’s pointman in stitching alliance with the PDP. Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and Intelligence Bureau Director Dineshwar Sharma were also present.
“The Government has decided to suppress the voices of terrorism and instigators of violence in the Kashmir valley for which some harsh measures could be taken in the next few days. The Government was of the view that it can’t act mute spectator to closure of educational institutions, traffic etc for two months as the students, youth and common man was suffering badly,” sources said after the high level meeting.
Maintaining that Pakistan and separatists were responsible to great extent behind the present unrest in the Valley, sources pointed out that the meeting discussed various measures to curb their activities including withdrawal of their security, police protection, other facilities like VVIP travel and treatment and going into details of their funding sources for which the NIA was already on the job.
Asserting that funds from various countries were being used to spread unrest, sources said the Government functionaries and the BJP leaders have go ahead to block all channels of funding of Hurriyat Conference leaders, separatists, militants and other influential persons instigating the violence.
“The meeting decided to increase presence of para-military forces in the rural areas, where there was more trouble this time as compared to urban belt,” they said, adding, if required, more forces would be dispatched to the Valley.
Sources said the Centre would direct the State Government to take all measures to open educational institutions, which have been shut for past two months now, jeopardizing career of students. The Government would also take steps to get opened roads, highways and shops of essential commodities and won’t allow few people to hold entire population of the Valley to ransom, they added.
“The Government would come out with final roadmap on Jammu and Kashmir after APD meeting chaired by Rajnath Singh in Parliament Hall at 11 am tomorrow as it wants to take all parties into confidence before announcing the harsh measures,” sources said.
In addition to harsh measures, sources said, the Centre would send a clear message that its doors were always open for talks with all forces of peace but there would be no dialogue with those, who were pushing innocent children and youth to the path of violence at the behest of forces inimical to India.
Sources said the Centre would, however, take Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on board before taking initiatives on Jammu and Kashmir.
“After two-day long All Party Delegation’s visit to Jammu and Kashmir, the Government was of the view that there was no fun of opening channels of talks with separatists and Hurriyat Conference leaders. But, it would expand the option of talks with people wanting peace especially youth and children, whose career was at stake due to closure of educational institutions,” sources said.
Simultaneously, they said, the Centre was mulling the option of sending more para-military forces, mainly the CRPF, to the Kashmir valley to strengthen their position to tackle protests in the Valley along with Jammu and Kashmir Police. However, the para-military was under instructions to exercise maximum restraint and use new chilli-filled shells for crowd control instead of pellet guns. They added that the para-military personnel have been asked to use pellet guns under rarest of rare circumstances.
Earlier in the morning, top officials of the Home Ministry also reviewed situation in Jammu and Kashmir in a meeting chaired by Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and attended by top officials of para-military forces and Intelligence agencies.
They discussed the steps required for controlling unrest in the Valley.
According to sources, the Centre has clear cut reports that Pakistan and separatists besides some vested interests were behind trouble in the Valley by instigating youth and children to take to violence.
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