Uri terror attack: India’s culture of shying from conflict is why such attacks will recur

The Modi government is understood to have given the army, its diplomats and its spooks a cautious go-ahead for some kind of calibrated, but not brash, response to the Pakistan-backed terrorist attack in Uri, which killed 18 soldiers. Nothing wrong with this, but it will achieve little. None of this has worked in the past, and none of this will amount to much beyond political optics even now or in the future. This is because underlying all this is a reactive approach, and hence our actions can be easily anticipated by the world’s original Islamic State, aka Pakistan.


The truth is countering Pakistan’s death-by-a-thousand cuts terror policy needs a long-term strategy, not a tactical reaction to events. But despite have seen over three decades of Pakistani perfidies, we do not have a coherent strategy. If we had one, by now the costs of Uri could have been clear to Pakistan. That we are still debating what to do, with media speculating on options loudly, means Pakistan is ready to face whatever we throw at them. Whatever we do will thus be ineffective.

Source:-firstpost
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1 Dead In Clashes In Kashmir, Valley Under Curfew On Eid

A man was killed and several people were injured in firing as protesters clashed with security forces on Tuesday morning in Bandipore, less than 70 km from Jammu and Kashmir capital Srinagar. The death toll in violent clashes in the state since July is now 80.

There is curfew in all 10 districts of the Kashmir Valley, but protesters have defied restrictions in many places, taking out demonstrations. Several people have been injured in clashes with security forces across the valley.

For the first time, Eid prayers today are not being held at the famous Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar. People have been asked to offer prayers at local mosques.


Source:-ndtv
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Army Convoy Attacked In Jammu And Kashmir's Kupwara; 3 Soldiers Injured

Srinagar:  At least three soldiers were injured this morning after an army convoy was attacked in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

Out of the three, one was in critical condition and was airlifted to the Army Hospital in Srinagar, a senior official said.

Terrorists attacked the convoy near Kralgund in Handwara town. Army launched the counter-offensive but terrorists managed to escape.

Army has launched cordon and search operations in the area.

This is the second terrorist attack on army convoy in the Valley since the July 8 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani.

Last month, two soldiers and a policeman were killed and five soldiers injured when an army convoy was attacked on the Srinagar-Baramulla highway near Khawaja Bagh in Baramulla. 





Source:-ndtv
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Fear of prolonged violence grips Kashmir as Centre fails to break the ice with separatists

The Home Minister announced that parliamentary delegation leaders who met the Hurriyat leaders did so in their individual capacities, thereby distancing himself from Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s overtures towards the separatists.

This has further weakened Mehbooba’s position as a leader in Kashmir. Mehbooba had written a letter to the separatists to come forward and engage with the parliamentary delegation. This development will further complicate problems for the ruling alliance of the PDP-BJP led by Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti.

That the BJP was not on board Mehbooba’s decision to invite Hurriyat for talks was reinforced by Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement that Mehbooba had approached the separatists in her individual capacity.

For people like Umar Wani, a resident of Rajbagh area of Srinagar, the failure to initiate talks is a big disappointment. “BJP’s Ram Madhav says Kashmir can ask for the moon within the Indian Constitution. Then why doesn’t the BJP leadership offer the same to Hurriyat? If they reject, the blame will come on them,” Wani told Firstpost after Home Minister Singh’s press conference.

“But right now, they are offering nothing. Why should the Hurriyat talk to them? There has to be a starting point for talks. I fear the situation will worsen now,” he added.

Hurriyat leader Abdul Gani Bhat told Firstpost that said that unless India and Pakistan do not engage in a sustained meaningful dialogue on Kashmir, the issue will never be resolved.

“They have to listen to the heartbeats of Kashmir. We got honored guests from Delhi and met them and later saw them off very gracefully. We were not against insaniyat. We had taken a collective decision not to meet them because they had no mandate,” Bhat told Firstpost.

Kashmir is unlikely to see the return of the normalcy any time soon and the cycle of violence is likely to prolong following the failure of the central government to break the ice. More than 70 people have been killed in the past 58 days, triggered by the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. There is no ray of hope that the unrest is turning weak, but with every new killing, injury or arrest, the people are getting angrier.

Dr Peer GN Suhail, director of Centre for Research and Development Policy (CRDP), a policy think tank based in Srinagar, said that there is no harm in talking to anyone but the dialogue has to be result-oriented and not just for photo-op.

“Since the parliament delegation did not have any mandate and there recommendations would not have been binding on the Government of India, talking to the delegation would have yielded results,” Suhail told Firstpost.

Despite all this, the situation in Kashmir will return to normalcy because as the Darbar shifts to Jammu and winter sets in, the chill automatically will calm the temperatures. But this will be temporary, because the seeds of angst buried under snow often sprout in summers in the form of another summer agitation.


Source:-firstpost
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PM Modi breaks silence on Kashmir, says sad to see youngsters carrying stones instead of laptops

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday finally broke his silence over the Kashmir issue. Evoking the Vajpayee model of 'insaniyat', the prime minister appealed for peace in Jammu and Kashmir, at a rally in Madhya Pradesh's Alirajpur district, reported NDTV.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, earlier on Tuesday, also visited Chandrashekhar Azad's birthplace in the tribal-dominated Alirajpur district of Madhya Pradesh and paid rich tributes to the revolutionary leader.


"Be it the Jammu and Kashmir government under Mehboobaji or the central government, we are finding solution to all problems through development," Modi said at the rally.

He said only a "handful of people who have been misled" were causing trouble in the Kashmir Valley, where protests, since the killing of rebel commander Burhan Wani on 8 July, left over 55 people dead and thousands injured.

"Some people are causing Kashmir a lot of harm," the prime minister said. "Kashmir wants peace. Whatever Kashmiris want for betterment of their livelihood, the Centre will provide."

In his speech, Modi made a direct appeal to the youngsters of Kashmir, saying that those who should be holding laptops, bats, balls in their hands & dreams in their hearts are the ones carrying stones.
Source:-firstpost
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Hafiz Saeed wants nationwide protest in Pakistan if Rajnath Singh is allowed to visit

Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed has asked the Pakistani government not to allow Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh to visit Pakistan and has warned of a nationwide protest if Singh does visit the country.

According to India Today, Saeed said that if Rajnath Singh's visit to Pakistan should only be considered if India allows the Pakistani government to send people to Jammu and Kashmir to help the Kashmiris there.

He also said that Pakistan should stop the export of onions and potatoes to India and should instead send relief materials to Kashmir.


Accusing Rajnath Singh of being "responsible for the killings of innocent Kashmiris", Saeed has warned of a countrywide protest in Pakistan by his outfit if the home minister arrives in Islamabad to attend the Saarc ministerial conference.

"I want to ask the Pakistani government: Will it add insult to injury to the wounds of Kashmiris by welcoming Rajnath who is responsible for the killings of innocent Kashmiris?" he asked in a statement in Lahore.

"It will be ironic as on the one hand, the whole Pakistani nation is protesting against the Indian atrocities in Kashmir and on the other hand, the Pakistani rulers will be garlanding Singh," said the statement issued on Monday.

The mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack said "if Singh comes to Islamabad on August 3, the JuD would hold countrywide protest to tell the world that the Pakistani rulers might have compulsions to receive Kashmiris' killers but the people of Pakistan are siding with oppressed Kashmiris."

He added that protest demonstrations will be held and rallies taken out in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan, Faisalabad, Muzaffarabad and other cities of the country on 3 August.

Saeed, who is carrying a $10 million US bounty on his head, warned the government that Singh's presence in Islamabad may create "unrest" among Kashmiris as well as Pakistanis in the face of scores of killings of Kashmiris "at the hands of Indian forces".

The people of Kashmir had refused to meet Singh during his Srinagar visit, he said adding the PML-N government "must also refuse to receive the BJP leader on the excuse that it may hurt and incite feelings of Kashmiris and Pakistanis."
Source:-Firstpost
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Kashmir unrest major setback for peace, says NYT, slams AFSPA

The major cause of the uprising in Kashmir is the resentment among Kashmiri youth who have come under India's security apparatus that acts against civilians with impunity, The New York Times said in an editorial on Thursday terming the current unrest as a "major setback for peace".

"Kashmir is subject to India's Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which grants the military wide powers to arrest, shoot to kill, occupy or destroy property. The result is a culture of brutal disdain for the local population," it said, in the editorial titled "Kashmir in Crisis".

"Once again, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir is convulsed in lethal violence pitting stone-throwing youths against armed police officers and security forces."

It said "troubling questions" about the timing and the circumstances of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani's death "remain unanswered".

"So too are questions about the apparently indiscriminate use of pellet guns. These and other questions argue for an independent investigation into the use of force by security forces, and for the reform of practices - including censorship, communications blackouts, and those allowed by AFSPA - that are unworthy of India's democracy."

"A failure to take these steps will only push more young Kashmiris into militancy, and make impossible a political solution that alone can bring an end to the desperation that has, once again, gripped the region," it added.

The killing of 22-year-old Wani, a poster boy of militancy, by security forces on July 8 triggered massive clashes across Kashmir Valley, leaving over 40 dead.

It said the "unrest is a major setback for peace in the long-troubled region claimed by both India and Pakistan, where an insurgency movement peaked in the 1990s, then waned, but never completely disappeared," NYT said.

It termed the current situation in Kashmir as a "state of siege" where mobile internet, mobile services and basic communication is banned and said it was "profoundly troubling in democratic India".
SOURCE:-buisness-standard
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Pakistan covets territory of others, uses terror as state policy towards that misguided end: India at UN

Syed Akbaruddin, India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, on Wednesday strongly hit back at Pakistan for raising the issues of alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and killing of Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani during a debate on human rights.

Responding strongly to the remarks made by Pakistan's envoy Maleeha Lodhi during a high-level thematic debate titled 'UN@70 Human Rights at the center of the global agenda', Akbaruddin accused Islamabad of attempting to misuse the UN platform.

“The attempt came from Pakistan; a country that covets the territory of others; a country that uses terrorism as state policy towards that misguided end; a country that extols the virtues of terrorists and that provides sanctuary to UN-designated terrorists; and a country that masquerades its efforts as support for human rights and self determination,” the Indian envoy to the UN said in a hard-hitting statement.

He was responding to Lodhi who apart from raising the Kashmir issue had also mentioned the "extra-judicial" killing of Wani, whom she described as a "Kashmiri leader", by Indian forces.

Akbaruddin said it was Pakistan which had failed to convince the international community on its human rights track record.

“Pakistan is the same country whose track record has failed to convince the international community to gain membership of the Human Rights Council in this very Session of the UNGA,” he told the 193-member United Nations General Assembly.

“The international community has long seen through such designs. Cynical attempts, like the one this morning therefore, find no resonance in this forum or elsewhere in the United Nations,” he added.

Reiterating India's commitment to upholding the rule of law and protecting human rights, the Indian envoy said, “As a diverse, pluralistic and tolerant society, India’s commitment to the rule of law, democracy and human rights is enshrined in its founding principles.”

“We remain strongly committed to the promotion and protection of all human rights for all through pursuit of dialogue and cooperation,” he added.

Source: http://zeenews.india.com