*Mehbooba bats for Jammu-Sialkot route
Sanjeev Pargal
JAMMU, Apr 8: Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today said that she has full faith in the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would change the development face of Jammu and Kashmir by looking into “ground realities” faced by the State. She also expressed hope that peace would soon be restored in the troubled National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar after nearly week long trouble.
In an interview given to the ETV today, Mehbooba pinned hopes on the Prime Minister for development of Jammu and Kashmir saying that J&K was not like any other Indian State and it deserved special focus of the Central Government.
“I have full faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He wants to change development face of the State,” she said but cautioned the Central Government that Jammu and Kashmir shouldn’t be treated like any other Indian State as it deserved special focus being a different State.
“Jammu and Kashmir is not another Indian State. Here the ground realities are a bit different and therefore, the State deserves a special attention and care,” Mehbooba Mufti, who had taken oath as the Chief Minister heading PDP-BJP coalition Government on April 4, said.
Reiterating the stand taken by her father and former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed for developing Jammu-Sialkot route on the pattern of Wagah border point in Amritsar district of Punjab, Mehbooba said she wanted to create historic monument on the Line of Control (LoC), which divided India and Kashmir between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) to attract tourists.
“We are keen to create one more Wagah point in Jammu and Kashmir on the same pattern of Amritsar for free movement of people of the divided region.
Asserting that she would take up the issue at the appropriate level soon, Mehbooba Mufti said opening of Jammu-Sialkot route would also promote local trade between India and Pakistan and the border areas of Jammu and Kashmir.
That, she said, would improve the ties between the two neighbours.
Expressing confidence that week long trouble in the NIT Srinagar would be resolved amicably and peacefully soon, Mehbooba said she had told Union Minister for Human Resources and Development (HRD) Smriti Irani also, when she rang up her, that the issue would be resolved.
She said she told Smriti Irani that a handful of students wanted to migrate to the Colleges outside the State and dismissed the trouble between local and outside students in the NIT Srinagar as a “non-issue” but regretted that it was being highlighted by certain people as a “communal incident”.
Mehbooba appreciated the bold public statement by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani who had appealed for calm at the college. Geelani had asked Kashmiri students at the college to take care of the safety of outsiders as â guests of Kashmir.
Mehbooba Mufti said during her meeting with the BJP Ministers also after taking over as the Chief Minister had called for caution and underplaying such unfortunate and uncalled for incidents in the sensitive State like Jammu and Kashmir as ultimately both the parties had to run the coalition Government together.
The Chief Minister hoped that normalcy will be restored soon at the NIT Srinagar where class work has been hit amid deployment of paramilitary forces in the campus.
Non-local students in the college had objected to and carried out demonstrations against celebrations on the victory of the West Indies team over India in T20 World Cup semifinal on March 31. Police had entered the college and resorted to brutal lathicharge on the non-local students resulting into massive protests, which continued even today.
Mehbooba said that her priorities for Jammu and Kashmir were “communal harmony, peace and development” to restore the confidence of the people in the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP)-BJP alliance.
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