Srinagar: CPI (M) leader and MLA Kulgam, Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami, PDF President and MLA Khansahib Hakeem Muhammad Yasin and DP (N) chief and former minister Ghulam Hassan Mir on Tuesday while welcoming the statement of Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh on article 35A have said New Delhi should also take steps to reverse the wrongs which have been done in the past.
“The wrong decisions by the successive governments in Delhi have created a huge trust deficit between the people of Jammu and Kashmir and rest of the country. To address this trust deficit and ensure that sentiments of Kashmiris are not hurt, there is need for imitating corrective measures besides taking concrete confidence building steps.”
“The statement of Union Home Minister on Article 35A has to be backed by immediate measures to defend this constitutional provision in the Supreme Court. And for that they need to file an affidavit in the apex court, which they haven’t done so far. It is otherwise also the duty of the Center to defend the constitution of India and Article 35A. Why there has been reluctance so far in filing a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court on Article 35A is quite surprising? New Delhi must now file a counter affidavit in the Supreme Court to defend 35A and that is the only way to carry this assurance forward.”
These political leaders said that if New Delhi is sincere in its announcement that five C’s—compassion, communication, co-existence, confidence-building and consistency—would form the basis for permanent solution to the Kashmir problem and it won’t take any step that would hurt sentiments of people, then there is need to revisit the whole process which has shattered the confidence level of the people of Kashmir and thereby resulted in massive alienation. The gap between Kashmir and rest of the country has greatly widened. Isn’t there need to revisit those wrong policies which have created this gap and mistrust? Isn’t there need to take concrete and bold initiatives to rectify these wrongs?
