Srinagar: Alleging that Narender Modi Government buried yet another of the Atal Behari Vajpayee era Confidence Building Measure (CBM) by suspending cross-Line of Control (LoC) trade, former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday evening said it was a decision to facilitate greater people to people contact across the LoC in the state.
He said rather than installing scanners the government has taken the regressive highly unfortunate step of throwing the baby out with the bath water. The vice president of the National Conference (NC) said instead of Instead of saving the CBM they’ve decided to abandon it.
Taking to micro blogging site twitter after the Home ministry decision to suspend the cross-LoC trade, Omar said “ Sadly Vajpayee Sahib’s legacy of cross LoC CBMs & the resolution of the Kashmir issue within the framework of “insaniyat, jumhuriyat & Kashmiriyat” is being sacrificed at the alter of opportunistic populism”.
He further tweeted “ Rather than install the scanners the Govt has taken the regressive & highly unfortunate step of throwing the baby out with the bath water. Instead of saving the CBM they’ve decided to abandon it”.
“That the LoC trade may have been used by some traders for illegal activities was suspected for years now & it was to plug this that the state has been pleading for the installation of full truck scanners at the trade points”, he said adding “ The Modi Govt buries another of the Vajpayee era CBMs. Cross LoC trade was a legacy of the Vajpayee Govt decision to facilitate greater people to people contact across the Line of Control in J&K”.
After successfully running the Karvan-e-Aman bus despite opposition by the militant outfits on April 7,2005, cross-LoC trade was resumed in 2008 for the first time after partition in 1947.
However, cross-LoC trade was suspended a number of times after brown sugar and other banned items were recovered from Pakistan-administrated Kashmir (PaK) trucks at Salamabad Uri.
Meanwhile, the cross-LoC bus service between Muzaffarabad and Muzaffarabad, capital of PaK, and trade remained suspended for the past seven weeks due to some repair from PaK side of the Aman Setu, peace bridge at Kaman post, the last Indian military post on this side of the LoC.
