Mehbooba flies to Delhi as one more killed in Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti walked out of a press conference with Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday even as the Centre promised an alternative to pellet guns that have left thousands of people with eye injuries in the Valley.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday made a passionate appeal for peace in the Kashmir Valley, saying India’s future was incomplete without a peaceful Kashmir and announced that an all-party delegation will visit the state soon for talks on ending a protracted violent unrest that has killed almost 70 people since July 9.

Declaring there is no future for India without Kashmir, Singh again invoked Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s policy of “Kashmiriyat, Insaniyat and Jamhooriyat” (Kashmir’s pluralist ethos, humanity and democracy) again to signal that the NDA government was ready for dialogue with anyone.

This is his second visit tot he Valley in the past two months.

She said that this “shameless woman” should understand that people of Kashmir hardly care for their lives and properties when it comes to fighting for their religion.

“I appeal to Kashmiri people to identify those who are trying to create such a situation in the valley”. He said: “We can never think of Kashmir’s future separate from the future of India. Or that 15-year-old boy outside the Army camp; had he gone there to fetch milk?”.

On the deaths in the ongoing protests, Mufti said, ‘Today 95 per cent who have been killed are youngsters belonging to poor families.

“We want to shape future of India”. “Stone-throwing will not end Kashmir’s problems”. As many as 107 people were killed in the 2010 violence, while the toll this time is 67 and the home ministry wants to contain the damage.

Finding her loosing her cool, Singh stepped in with a smile to tell the reporters that they can continue their discussion with the chief minister later.

He topped it up with some empathetic talk and assurance of a review of the use of pellet guns in “two to three days”.

The source said state and central intelligence agencies have prepared a list of around 170 ringleaders, found inciting the unrest and provoking people to take to the streets and throw stones at security forces.

“I have saved them (youth) from knives, when they used to run after seeing the vehicles of task force (special counter-insurgency force), they used to be taken as bonded labourers (by army) in south Kashmir, ” she said.

India’s future, he said, is intrinsically linked to the future of Kashmir.

Mehbooba alleged that some people were using these young children as human shield and encouraging them to clash with Police and security forces. “They will not be allowed to make life hell for majority here”, she said.