‘Youth Sacrificing Lives For Freedom’

SRINAGAR: Three time chief minister and National Conference patron, Dr Farooq Abdullah, on Friday said that Kashmiri youth were sacrificing their lives for freedom of their land.

Addressing party workers at the Nawa-e-Subh party headquarters in Srinagar, Dr Abdullah said: “Today, when our boys are rendering sacrifices, they are not aspiring to become MLAs, MPs or ministers. They are giving sacrifices to demand their right: ‘this is our land and we are its rightful owners.”

Addressing party leaders, legislators and workers at a function held to commemorate the second death anniversary of veteran party leader and former General Secretary Sheikh Nazir Ahmed, Abdullah asked the NC workers not to forget  sacrifices of these youth. “These boys have left. Everyone lives life, nobody wants to die. But they have made promise with God that you are the sole giver and taker of life. But we will sacrifice our life for the freedom of this nation,” Dr Abdullah said.

He also trained guns at India and Pakistan for “not doing justice with the people of Kashmir”.

“India and Pakistan are not able to understand this. This fight started in 1931. We are not anybody’s enemy. But we are asking both the countries to do justice with us. You forgot promises made in 1948,” said Farooq Abdullah and added that a new nation has taken birth which doesn’t fear guns. “It (Kashmir) is striving to achieve the freedom.”

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‘Delhi Can’t Suppress Political Aspirations of Kashmir’

Dr Farooq Abdullah cautioned New Delhi against an effort to suppress the political aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir through administrative and military mechanisms. 

“These young men we see out on the roads today don’t care about their lives, their livelihood or about their personal grievances but are full of resentment and hostility because of how New Delhi has always and continues to see and define them through the narrow, conventional prism of law and order dynamics. If it were as simple as threatening the youth to desist from these protests and activities, the soil of this State wouldn’t have been soaked with the blood of thousands of young men and women. This too is no rocket science,” Dr Abdullah further said.

Former Chief Minister and Union Minister said statesmanship and sagacity demanded that New Delhi should initiate political engagement with the alienated youth of the State rather than resorting to a confrontational and aggressive approach by issuing threats of ‘harsh measures.’

“When we demand that New Delhi should engage with the politically isolated, alienated and anguished youth of the State, we are not condoning violence or turmoil – nor are we supporting strife. To the contrary, by asking New Delhi to talk to these young men, we are seeking that the root cause of alienation be addressed rather than a continuing with the policy of treating the symptoms through operational and administrative mechanisms. That is a tried, tested and failed approach and has yielded nothing but a loss of young lives on all sides,” Dr Abdullah said.

The NC president said the turmoil and hostility in Jammu and Kashmir was in itself a result of extra-constitutional intrigues by successive regimes in New Delhi that went against all constitutional safeguards and promises that were provided to the State at the time of accession.

“Before looking at external factors and blaming the problems in J&K on terrorism, New Delhi should read contemporary history of the State with objectivity and then only will it realize that the simmering political issue in the State is the outcome of New Delhi’s overt and covert acts of constitutional impropriety and injustice with the State and its people”, the NC President added.

Pakistan Blamed For UP Rail Crash 

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi blamed a deadly train crash that killed 148 people last November on Pakistan as he campaigned for a key state election on Friday.

Narendra Modi claimed police had found evidence of sabotage in the disaster last November, when a crowded passenger train derailed in northern Uttar Pradesh (UP) state, linking it to Pakistan. Police have not corroborated that claim, made at a rally ahead of the latest stage of voting for a new government in UP — India’s most populous state and a hotly contested political prize.

“A rail accident happened in Kanpur and some people were arrested after that,” Modi said at an election rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda district.

“The police found that it was a conspiracy hatched across the border,” he added, in an apparent reference to rival Pakistan. “If people who will help the conspirators are elected from here, will Gonda be safe, will the nation be safe?”

The prime minister’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is facing a tough challenge in UP from the ruling Samajwadi Party in an election many see as a test of his popularity halfway through his first term.

The state, with a voting population equal to that of Brazil, is key to Modi’s own political future as well as his party’s as India inches towards the next general election in 2019.

Three suspects were arrested over a failed bid to blow up a rail track in Bihar state in December confessed to working for an agent who had also ordered them to target the train in Kanpur. Police later said they found no evidence to back the suspects’ claims.

Let’s Avoid Conspiracies Against Each Other: Sharif

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and India should have friendly and good neighbourly relations and avoid hatching conspiracies against each other, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said.

Sharif told reporters accompanying him on his visit to Turkey that even during the election campaign in Pakistan, his party did not adopt the policy of “India bashing” and ended this “negative tradition”.

“We [Pakistan and India] should maintain good relations and avoid involving in conspiracies against each other,” he said, without elaborating.

India and Pakistan relations have been strained for the past over a year. The bilateral ties nosedived particularly after an attack on Indian Army base in Uri on September 18 last year. Nineteen Indian soldiers were killed in the attack.

Sharif said Pakistan was grateful to Turkey for its support on the Kashmir issue, according to a report in the Dawn.

He also expressed gratitude for Turkey’s stance on Pakistan’s inclusion in the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which India is also vying.

Talking about recent incidents of terrorism in the country, Sharif said some elements who were upset with the progress of Pakistan were behind the current spate of terror incidents. He expressed the government’s resolve to eliminate terrorism at all costs.

“With our firm resolve, we will defeat those who are not digesting Pakistan’s success on different fronts,” he said, adding the involvement of a foreign hand in terror activities in Pakistan could not be denied, according to the report.

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