Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR Mar 18: Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today called upon India and Pakistan to uphold the ceasefire on the Line of Control (LoC), saying innocent lives were being lost to border skirmishes.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of workers’ convention to commemorate the 23th Death Anniversary of Late Wali Muhammad Itoo at Kulgam, Omar urged India and Pakistan to follow the ceasefire agreement of 2003 which had brought respite to the people living along the borders.
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“Ceasefire was the best gift India and Pakistan gave to the areas near the border and the LoC, but since the last few years, we are continuously seeing that it has remained confined to paper only. It is not being implemented. I request both New Delhi as well as Islamabad to follow the ceasefire as part of the CBMs (confidence building measures),” he said.
Omar expressed serious concern over the growing unemployment in the State and said the PDP-BJP Government’s open patronage to nepotism, corruption and illegitimate recruitment practices had created a deep sense of despondency among the youth.
The former Chief Minister said that the Chief Minister has not delivered the promise of holding inquiry into backdoor appointments. “Three weeks before Chief Minister assured to youth of the Valley that there will be enquiry about back door appointments in Khadi and Village Industries Board but the enquiry order is still not issued from the Secretariat. We want to know whether the orders of Chief Minister are not followed or Chief Minister had herself deliberately kept the youth of the Valley in dark as she promised to the youth but never issued the order”, he said.
When asked about the defeat of BJP in Bihar and UP polls, Omar said: “May be this is the beginning of defeat of BJP and we will end their rule here in 2019”.
The former Chief Minister said that Mehbooba stood relegated by her allies as erstwhile exclusive jurisdictions of the Chief Minister and the State Government had been effectively shifted to the Central Government and the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
Omar said: “PDP’s Faustian bargain with the BJP was not an electoral compulsion as Mehbooba would like us to believe today. It was a pre-determined, pre-planned tactical and strategic coming together of the PDP and the BJP to reap dividends of a simultaneously divisive, insular and deceitful politics in both regions of the State.”
Stating that J&K has been pushed into the throes of renewed militancy, turmoil and division, he said while the situation in Kashmir is volatile and unstable, Jammu is on the brink due to BJP’s politics of polarization.
Omar said the situation is volatile especially in South Kashmir where the youth stand alienated and disenchanted because of PDP’s complete U-turn after 2014.
“Mehbooba has summarily surrendered her power to take decisions and has precious little to offer to the people beyond photo-ops and press statements. Just yesterday Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh exposed the duplicity and disingenuous modus operandi of the Chief Minister and her party when he revealed that the idea to offer amnesty to stone pelters came from the Central Government and not the State Government”, he said.
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