Jammu-Srinagar and Jammu- Doda/Bhaderwah roads designated as National Highways are turning to be the killer roads keeping in mind recurrent traffic accidents that consume precious lives. This is the umpteenth time that we are reacting on a situation that is not controlled and contained by the concerned authorities. The main and common causes of traffic accidents along these roads are known to all particularly the traffic department. Sometime back a team detailed by the central road transport organization undertook study and survey of the hilly road and supposedly made some recommendations which are not known to us. But we understand that night driving has been the main cause of accidents. The drivers feel drowsy and lose control on the steering and then the tragic accidents happen. Strangely, the commuters are unable to control their urge of night travel thereby risking their lives for no real superior purpose. Why does not the traffic department devise some rules to control and monitor night travel and save the passengers the fear of death looming on their heads throughout the time of journey. But it has to be said that night travel is not the only cause of road accidents. Even in day time accidents have happened. That could have different reasons which the traffic department should try to find out and then resolve. Traffic department is rife with corruption on all levels more dangerously in issuing clandestine driving licenses. Untrained conductors or helpers are asked to drive the vehicles and these run out of their control because they are not conversant with driving culture. It is high time that the Government constitute a high power committee to examine the entire traffic issue on the two roads mentioned above.

Strange are the ways of the world. Is it conceivable that leadership prompting and backing solution of Kashmir issue through armed insurgency would need to be protected against their own gun-totting boys? Yes, precisely that is the situation. Their handlers have made substantive investment in effectively brainwashing militant cadres. They knew that local leadership will reason out many actions of the militants and seek their jurisprudence. This means that in the e chemistry of mentors and handlers, Kashmir leadership was to be held under siege; in fact the jurisprudence of violence as such had to be held under siege. The militants had to be the law unto them.
Truth became the first casualty of Kashmir insurgency. This happened partly owing to the dynamics of armed insurgency and partly to the machinations of sponsors of terrorism. There is no doubt that insurgents carried out disinformation campaign with remarkable success. Contradicting the truth and belying the facts are the articles of faith for a militant. Entire campaign is shrouded in a plethora of falsehood and it is made pervasive through make-believe process.
APHC emerged in 1992 as the voice of Kashmir dissident segment. It may have been amenable to undoing of status quo in Kashmir, but till date it has never been clear about the proposition of gun as the option of carrying forward the battle for “aazaadi”. In other words, the Hurriyat has always been sceptic about the fecundity of the gun to deliver the goods. That is why in the course of its two decade long history, the APHC could not openly declare itself either the diehard protagonist or antagonist of gun as the arbiter. All that it said was nothing more than aphorismic appreciation for conditional talks. The APHC could never muster courage to give a call for abandoning the gun and violence as the means of attaining any goal. In doing so, the organization created an impression in the minds of militant cadres that it had licensed their option of arbitration by the gun. This is the cumbersome baggage weighing on the conscience of introspective faction of Hurriyat leadership. Its first reverberations were suspected in the view of Abdul Ghani Lone and later on in subjective expressions of the former APHC President, Maulavi Abbas Ansari. Now, in the judgement of Prof. Abdul Ghani Bhat, again a former Chairman of APHC, UN Resolutions on Kashmir —Hurriyat’s self-styled magical wand to unlock Kashmir juggernaut— are not implementable. This updated thinking causes confusion to the indoctrinated cadres among the dissidents and makes the position of their external handlers only vulnerable.
When a state is activated to provide security to the life of a leader, it does not take into account the ideology to which the leader subscribes. That is politics, and politics in a democracy is the life-line of that polity. The state is enjoined by the constitution to provide security of life to a threatened person. The foremost human right, as enshrined in the UN Charter of Human Rights is the right to life. The state has to secure that right for a citizen. It is in the light of this fact that the Government is under obligation to provide highest security to the moderate and rational segments of leadership. The point is not whether a public leader has or has not asked for security. The Government has to discharge its constitutional obligation, especially when it knows that the life of a leader is under threat. It is for the security establishment of the state to see to it that full proof security is provided in whatever way advisable.
One has to be positive in reacting to government’s alertness in beefing up security for the moderate elements of APHC. This is a forewarning to the security establishment as well as the underground militant organizations that they cannot take things lying low. People are now getting convinced that moderate and saner elements among the leaders of the movement should be fully protected so that the voice of sanity is not stifled. They are realising the damage done to the cause of peace and normalcy in Kashmir by those who unleashed the gun. Had not the handlers and militants conspired to snatch away leaders like Maulana Masudi, Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq, Abdul Ghani Lone and others, history of Kashmir would have been different today. Our appeal to militant leadership within and outside the sphere of APHC is that this is a moment of introspection and self-evaluation. Individuals can be liquidated but not the ideas not the truth. The truth must prevail —- satayameva jayati.