‘Why Are You Firing Bullets At Us?’

Tanmarg, Sep 22 : When the all-party delegation on Tuesday decided to move out of the security cordons of Dal lake to hear out the people, it came face to face with the ‘reality’ of Kashmir.

While a 14-member group that included BJP leader Sushma Swaraj, CPM's Sitaram Yechury and CPI's Gurudas Dasgupta faced angry protests during their visit to the city's main hospital, an 11-member delegation comprising Union Home Minister P Chidambaram, top BJP leader Arun Jaitley and other leaders heard plainspeak at Tangmarg -- the Valley's famous holiday destination where five youths were killed and 85 others injured in police and CRPF firing during a mass protest recently.

At Ward 16 of SMHS hospital, where all 16 injured patients admitted in the hospital had assembled to interact with the delegation members, one of them shouted: "Give us freedom or kill us all."Outside, hundreds of attendants staged a protest.

The government then dropped the plan of taking the delegation to visit injured youths at Bones and Joints Hospital owing to the protests.

At Tangmarg, however, the situation was calmer when Chidambaram, Arun Jaitley and other leaders met a group of around 300 villagers brought together by local Independent legislator and Agriculture minister in Omar Abdullah government Ghulam Hassan Mir.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was with the delegation. Here too, the message wasn't any different.

Sensing that the programme could be orchestrated, as names of villagers were called out to speak on the dais, Chidambaram suddenly stood up, followed by others, and walked towards the villagers, turning it into a direct conversation.

A young Tariq Ahmad Lone from the crowd asked him: "If you call Kashmir an atoot ang (inalienable part) of India, then why are your people showering bullets on Kashmiris?... If you say Kashmir is atoot ang of India, then why are you putting your own ang (body part) into frying pan?" The Home Minister listened, so did other leaders.

This was followed by another question to Chidambaram. "I want to ask you, why are you firing bullets at us whenever there is a protest. Protests are always peaceful but unlike other states, you fire at us here. Why is it different in other states?" asked Yasir Mir, a student. Again, the Home Minister stood silent.

Then a question was posed to Arun Jaitley. An elderly man stood up and asked: "Jaitley sahib, I wanted to ask you as to why we are being labelled as Pakistanis... We are asking for our right. Our right is legitimate. We are your own, we are not strangers." Jaitley, too, stayed silent.

The all-party delegation had decided to reach out to the people at the close of the initial day of meetings with the mainstream political parties, trade, tourism and civil society groups besides talks with the three top Kashmiri separatist leaders.

Before leaving for Jammu on Tuesday afternoon, the delegation split into different groups to improvise on the set format and meet the "real people".

In the morning, Chidambaram along with Jaitley and other leaders flew to Gulmarg and then drove another 11-km to reach Tangmarg.

Though the visiting all-party delegation members didn't speak to the press, several top leaders said they were on the same page on the ground situation in the Valley. "There is an immediate need for a serious political intervention. The situation here is extremely precarious and any delay to address it will not work," a senior leader told The Indian Express.

The all-party delegation Wednesday concluded its three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir and flew back to New Delhi in a special plane from here, an official source said.

The team arrived in Jammu Tuesday after spending one and a half days in Srinagar.

The delegation's visit was necessitated by an unending cycle of stone throwing, clashes and killings. More than 100 people have been killed in the clashes since June 11. "We are going back to Delhi with a much better understanding of Kashmir."

Source: Indian Express