Jammu And Kashmir - 2

[Guest]

Govt diluting command over Kashmir, says Arun Jaitley

pioneer.com

Kumar Uttam | New Delhi

Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley on Friday hit out at the Manmohan Singh Government for its policies on Pakistan and J&K, saying New Delhi was forcing the country down an “alley of darkness from where nobody will have an idea how to come out”.



Jaitley was critical of the Government for deciding to resume talks with Pakistan. He feared that New Delhi would finally land in a situation where India’s command over Kashmir was diluted. He also questioned the Government’s intention in endorsing the J&K Government’s surrender policy for terrorists in PoK, wondering whether the current regime wanted to legitimise infiltration.



A member of the Prime Minister’s Working Group on J&K, Jaitley said he was not aware when and how did the committee recommend in favour of the surrender policy. He said the recommendations were not discussed with the members. “Forget the final report, most members had not even seen the draft. One fine day, the report by Justice Saghir Ahmed-headed committee cropped up. Last time the committee met was two years ago,” Jaitley said.



On Thursday, Home Minister P Chidambaram had said the surrender policy was among the recommendations of the Prime Minister’s Working Group.



The senior BJP leader also took on the Home Minister, who had said the Government was trying to take everyone on board, by referring to the open disagreement between Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad and Omar Abdullah on the controversial proposal. "This Government has no idea what damage it would do to the country. I will like this Government to commit in front of the nation that not a single inch of the Indian territory would be compromised and that India's position on J&K would not be diluted during the talks with Pakistan," Jaitley told The Pioneer.



The former Union Minister accused the Manmohan Singh Government of succumbing to the US pressure and deciding to resume talks with Pakistan though the latter had not showed any signs that it was ready to crack down on anti-India terror groups operating from its soil.