Tuesday, January 25, 2011

'If not in Kashmir, shall we hoist the flag in Islamabad?

Kashmiri Pandits say that by stopping the BJP's Rashtriya Ekta Yatra, Centre and state governments have submitted themselves to the wishes of bullies

After senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj were prevented from entering the city of Jammu in support of the party's Rashtriya Ekta Yatra and asked to return to Delhi, Kashmiri Pandits have strongly deplored the state government's move.

"I am not surprised at the response of Central and Jammu and Kashmir governments. They have been behaving this way all the while. They have submitted themselves to the wishes of bullies," said Sushil Pandit, a representative of Roots in Kashmir (an organisation of Kahmiri Pandits). "Kashmir is an integral part of India. If people are not allowed to hoist national flag in Kashmir, will they go to Islamabad for that," Pandit added.

Jammu- based convenor of Panun Kashmir, Agnishekhar said, "This is not opposition to BJP but to the very act of hoisting the national flag in Kashmir. Had the flag been in the hand of Sonia Gandhi, Lalu Prasad Yadav or Nitish Kumar, the reaction would have been the same. The incident has shown that the normalcy has not returned to Kashmir as claimed by the Central and Jammu and Kashmir governments. We knew it and now whole country and world has come to know of it,' he said.

The leader said that it was an irony that when Arundhati Roy, Yasin Malik and SAS Geelani talk of breaking this country into pieces, nothing happens to them. But when somebody plan to hoist the flag, he is prevented from doing so," said the leader.

Meanwhile, 'Roots in Kashmir' boycotted a meeting called by the Home Ministry in Delhi on Monday in protest against Jammu incident. "The Home Ministry had invited us for meeting on security concerns of Kashmiri Pandits after terror threats. We did not attend it in protest of the Ministry's stand against hoisting of national flag at the Lal Chowk," said Aditya Raj Kaul of the organisation.

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