Yashwant Sinha: Economic Crisis Intensifying, BJP Will Be Held to Account in 2019
BJP leader Yashwant Sinha. PHOTO: REUTERS
Veteran Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP] leader Yashwant Sinha criticised India’s approach to Kashmir,
insisting that they have “lost the people of the valley emotionally.”
In an interview with The Wire, the former Indian foreign minister came down hard on BJP-led
government’s alienation of the Kashmiri people. “I am looking at the alienation of the masses of
people in Jammu and Kashmir. That is something which bothers me the most… We have lost the
people emotionally… You just have to visit the valley to realise that they have lost faith in us.”
The BJP leader stressed that Pakistan is a necessary third party for a resolution of the Kashmir
conflict. “If you want a final resolution then we’ll have to involve with Pakistan at some point of
time… Yes, you can’t carry on with this forever.”
PHOTO: AFP
Referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s August 15 speech about embracing the people
of Kashmir, he said the people in Indian-occupied Kashmir [IoK] were still waiting.
“Then the home minister goes to Srinagar and he says ‘we are prepared to talk to all stakeholders,
I invite all stakeholders to talk to me’. Now, what is this?” he asked. “That he is sitting in the guest
house, and people will come and seek an appointment? Is this the way a dialogue is conducted?”
In January, Sinha-led team of “concerned citizens” published a report on Kashmir, observing that
there was a “near complete lack of faith in anything that the government of India says or promises
because of a history of broken commitments.” It said the Kashmiri feel “India refuses to recogise
that Kashmir is a political problem and therefore requires a political solution. ”
Sinha stressed that the situation had deteriorated since making alienation “deeper and wider than
it was earlier.”
Government forces in Indian-held Kashmir have been using pellet guns since 2010 as a ‘non-lethal’
weapon following wide-scale civilian protests against Indian rule.
Earlier in September, Amnesty International reiterated its call for a ban on pellet-firing shotguns
used by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir to quell civilian protests. In a report the rights group
said it had interviewed 88 people whose eyesight had been damaged by the metal shot from the
pump-action guns. Two of the victims had been completely blinded.
Among them was nine-year-old Asif Ahmad Shiekh, whose eyes were damaged by the pellets.
“Watching cartoons on TV, playing with my friends on the street, reading books for hours – this is
what I dream of now,” the report quoted him as saying.
Source: The Tribune Express:Published: October 2, 2017
By AFP
PHOTO: AFP
OSLO, NORWAY: Two Kashmiri activists on Thursday won Norway’s Rafto Prize for human rights
for their long-term struggle against violence in the occupied territory, the jury announced.
Parveena Ahanger, nicknamed “The Iron Lady of Kashmir”, founded and leads the Association of
Parents of Missing Persons after her 17-year-old son was kidnapped by Indian forces in 1990. She
hasn’t heard anything from or of him since.
Her co-laureate, lawyer Imroz Parvez, founded the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS)
which promotes human rights and non-violence. It has documented Indian authorities’ use of torture
in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
“Parveena Ahangar and Imroz Parvez have long been at the forefront of the struggle against arbitrary
abuses of power in a region of India that has borne the brunt of escalating violence, militarisation
and international tension,” the Rafto Foundation said in a statement.
“Their long campaign to expose human rights violations, promote dialogue and seek peaceful solutions
to the intractable conflict in Kashmir has inspired new generations across communities,” it added.
The prize of $20,000 will formally be presented on November 5 in the western Norwegian town of
Bergen. Named after the late Norwegian human rights activist Thorolf Rafto, four past winners of
the prize — Aung San Suu Kyi, Jose Ramos-Horta, Kim Dae-Jung and Shirin Ebadi — went on to
win Nobel Peace Prize, whose laureate for 2017 will be announced on October 6.,
Source:tribune.com.pk, Published: September 29, 2017
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