SP Sharma
While the Mehbooba Mufti led PDP is sitting quiet on the ugly incidents of the Kashmir police personnel brutally torturing a section of students of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) for carrying the Indian national flag to counter those raising anti-India slogans, the ruling coalition partner BJP is receiving all the bashing in the Jammu region and elsewhere for initially trying to play it down.
Even many hardcore supporters of BJP were criticizing the manner in which the ministers of the party failed to rise to the occasion to extend support to the students from Jammu and other parts of the country who were thrashed by the state police for three days on the campus.
The ruling PDP was treating it just like any other law and order problem by ordering an enquiry by a middle rung officer of the rank of additional deputy commissioner. Without waiting for outcome of the enquiry report, various organizations of valley, including the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce have come out in support of the local police.
There is a strong feeling among parents of the victim students that the incident would have been pushed under the carpet had the social media and local newspapers of Jammu not published photos of the cane charge and the SOS flashed by the students who were feeling threat to their life and were virtually kept captive within the campus.
The initial reaction of the Deputy CM Nirmal Singh describing it as a mild lathicharge on the agitating non-Kashmiri students has come under wide criticism. Why should Nirmal Singh have acted immaturely and tried to protect the culprits who brutally thrashed the students who were carrying the tri-Colour and chanting pro-India slogans, parents of the victims have questioned. If it was such a minor incident then why was he hesitant to go to the NIT on the pretext of security issue, they point out.
The incident haunts the BJP leadership in Jammu as well as in Delhi just like the one when Mehbooba’s father Mufti Sayeed immediately after taking oath as Chief Minister last year gave the credit for the peaceful Assembly elections in J&K to Pakistan and separatist elements. Both these incidents have caused lot of embarrassment for the top BJP leadership that after the elections was keen to have alliance with the PDP.
This has armed the opposition parties with lot of ammunition to pin down the BJP particularly in the Jammu region where for the first time the party made a virtual sweep in the last Assembly and Lok Sabha elections.
Situation of this type is proving an acid test for the BJP that in the past while in opposition would come out on the streets beating their chests to protest against any such incident but has turned mute spectator after coming to power.
The three months of Governor’s rule following death of Mufti Sayeed witnessed total calm in the state with focus on development activity and the ugly situation erupted just as if it was waiting for the PDP—BJP government to revive.
Political observers say that the BJP leadership shall have to do a lot of introspection, assert and effectively take care of interests of the Jammu region to restore its credibility that was fast getting eroded in the region. The reality that the local BJP ministers and legislators have to keep in mind is that the party won that number of seats in the Assembly just because of the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and not because of their personal influence and as such they were expected to fulfill their electoral promises.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and her colleagues would obviously by their political moves try to retrieve the ground that the PDP has since the last year lost in the Kashmir valley, but in this type of situation the BJP ministers will have to keep its eyes and ear wide open and get working seriously instead of getting lost in the din of the sirens and hooters of their motorcades.
( The writer is a senior journalist)
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