SRINAGAR: Even as the recent row over Kousar Nag yatra has caused alarm among analysts who insist that the BJP government would gallop toward realizing its Hindutva dream in Kashmir, Indian home ministry Monday remarked a ‘soft snub’ against those bent on stoking communal tensions. Asked if the central government would literally force the J&K government to budge on the Kousar Nag issue.
“The CM (Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah) came and expressed his views. So, we will take into account all the aspects in national interest. We are not bound by opinion of one party or one organization. Everything has to be in the national interest,” India’s junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju said on Monday.
He has already asserted that the Union government would deal cautiously with the “sensitive” Kashmir issue and would guard the “national interest” while handling the restive state even more cautiously “in the national interest”.
“It is not wise enough on my part (now) to spell out the steps which we are planning to take because it is a sensi68tive matter and we are dealing with it cautiously and we have to see everything in national interest,” Rijiju said on the sidelines of the Passing Out Parade of the National Industrial Security Academy , premier training institute of Central Industrial Security Force at Hyderabad.
But the minister hastened to add that modalities were being finalized to execute the Rs. 500 Cr rehabilitation package for Kashmiri Pandit migrants. “But I cannot spell out any policy about Kashmir now, because these are under the consideration of our ministry.”
In this year’s Union budget, the Centre had announced Rs 500 crore package for displaced Kashmiri Pandits living in various parts of the country and for rebuilding their lives.
Reacting to a query on separatists in the Valley giving a call for shutdown against the Kashmiri Pandits’ pilgrimage (yatra) to Kousar Nag – a virgin glacial spring in Pirpanjal mountain range in South Kashmir, the minister said, “The Ministry of Home Affairs is examining the whole thing.”
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