Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 24: Additional general secretary of J&K National Conference and former minister Dr Sheikh Mustafa Kamaal giving vent to his feelings to the party cadre regarding “Commendation card” by the Chief of the Army staff to Maj Leetul Gogoi of 53 RR for his ” prompt decision to tie a Kashmir civilian to the Army vehicle” purportedly to protect soldiers from stone throwers said he was utterly dismayed and distressed that the Indian Army would go for such an unconventional way, in complete disregard to the rules of operating procedures in peace time which has taken all right thinking people at home by complete surprise.
Dr Kamaal said it is 27 years to the day the 5th largest and reportedly ” Very disciplined” Army of the world was assigned civilian duty which is not their mandated job, and caused damage to civilian society. Atal Behari Vajpayee had expressed the same fear on one of his visits to J&K as PM in early year 2000 stating that if Army is kept for too long on civilian duty, such a thing was bound to happen.
He said from the video clips of this incident there is no supporting evidence of a protesting crowd or for that matter Army column. It was just one Army vehicle with a civilian tied to it. This makes it abundantly clear that it was done to humiliate people of Kashmir. There are scores of such incidents of human rights violation and crimes against society by the Army in J&K State since last 27 years.
Regarding exodus of Kashmir Pandits from the Valley in 1990, Kamaal said Pandit community itself has cleared it in September 1990 itself with a letter signed by about a score of Kashmir Pandits appearing in Greater Kashmir dated 22-09-1990 and again early this year. In this letter they have, among other things, held Mufti Sayeed, Jag Mohan, Atal Behari Vajpayee and LK Advani responsible for this exodus and have apologized to the Muslims for not being with them in their troubled time and said very clearly that they fell victim to the nefarious designs of these politician so that security would have a free hand to massacre Muslims.
Senior NC leaders Rattan Lal Gupta, Abdul Gani Malik and Sheikh Bashir Ahmed were also present in the meeting.
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