Bickering continues over withdrawal of troops

SRINAGAR: Terming talk of early polls as mere rumours, J&K Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday ruled out the possibility of any troop cut from J&K. He said the infiltration that was down for some time is going up and the militant violence is witnessing a surge.

“Some senior leaders are raising the issue but the situation has changed totally. Infiltration and militancy-related incidents were down during winters but they have gone up,” Azad told a news conference. “If we send the security forces to barracks and something happens, I will have to get in three times more troops to control it,” he added. Azad said it would be better to wait till the militancy reaches a manageable level.

The chief minister said the security forces are required for maintaining the tempo of the political activities. “Almost everybody — Congress, PDP, NC, and Hurriyat A, B, C are all out.

There are hundreds of political meetings and this all is possible when the troops dominate the areas in which they go. If we withdraw the security forces, no party will be able to hold such meetings with one or couple of personal security officers,” Azad said.

“During the NDA regime, there was a ceasefire and later, the government’s unilateral ceasefire continued for some months and it created a problem.”

Azad said the mistakes committed by the armed forces should be taken in the same way as those of civilians’ crimes are being taken. “Crimes are everywhere and army is not excluded,” he said. He said numbers of troops do not matter much.

“It is the behaviour and attitude with which they are operating and I believe their behaviour has changed a lot,” Azad said, insisting that he is raising the issue of human rights in the Unified Headquarters meetings quite often.

Union Water Resources Minister Prof Saif ud Din Soz said Mufti Sayeed only wants more space for the state police. “Let us have the army where it is required and troops where they are a must like borders,” he said insisting that he does not differ with Azad.

However, Azad’s statement has invited fierce reaction from alliance partner PDP. Terming the official stand as “narrow analysis of ground situation”, PDP President and MP Ms Mehbooba Mufti said the “skewed and offhand” statements have the “potential of not only sabotaging the peace process but undermining the state’s political authority as well”.

The statements, she told a gathering in border Kupwara, are contrary to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assertion that there could be no military solution to the Kashmir issue.