Srinagar, August 23: Demanding a withdrawal of troops from civilian areas and Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), main opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the law has clearly outlived its purpose and improved ground situation in the state has made it an unnecessary tool of repression.
We would intensify mobilisation of public opinion against this draconian law, a spokesman for the PDP said in a statement here this afternoon.
He said the law was the antithesis of the country’s democratic system and worked at cross purposes with the objectives of a modern, civilised state in which human life and dignity was of supreme importance. ”If ever it had any utility, the law has clearly outlived that and the vastly improved ground situation has made it an unnecessary tool of repression’ he said and added it had to be repealed as a starting point for opening a new chapter of reconciliation and resolution in the state.
Referring to the alleged flip-flop attitude of the government on the issue, the spokesman said it was good the state government had stopped its tactics of running with the hare and hunting with the hound when it announced its opposition to the revocation of AFSPA on the floor of legislative assembly. He said that should send a clear message to the people of the state that it could be achieved only through democratic and peaceful assertion of their voice and the state government could not be counted upon for channeling their genuine aspirations.
” The state government had shed the last fig leaf on the issue and had confronted the people with a new dark reality that it is not able even to plead the state’s case with centre, much less solve problems” he said.
The spokesman said it was unfortunate that the overall discourse about the political nature of Jammu and Kashmir problem had once again assumed the old contours of intransigence and denial that marked its traditional handling which bred cynicism and alienation in the state.
The development does not bode well either for the state or the South Asian region, he cautioned and said the positive gains made through the peace process after 2000 were systematically being dismantled.
—-Agencies