New Delhi, June 24 (IANS) The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Thursday said little has been done to punish security personnel who have violated human rights in Jammu and Kashmir.
The CPI-M termed the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Srinagar earlier this month as ‘remarkable for the lack of any worthwhile political initiative to tackle the basic problems’.
‘The alienation of the people is expressing itself through mass protests and strikes whenever there are atrocities committed by the security forces,’ the party said, citing the recent incidents, including the death of a teenaged student in an alleged teargas shell firing in Srinagar and alleged killing of three youths by an army unit last month.
‘Despite the prime minister’s assurance of zero tolerance towards human rights violations, little was done to punish those in the armed forces who have indulged in such atrocities,’ the party said in the latest issue of its mouthpiece, People’s Democracy.
In early May, there was the shocking revelation that three young men from villages in North Kashmir were lured by the promise of jobs and taken to the Line of Control and shot dead by an army unit, who later claimed that they had killed extremists.
‘Such incidents have further angered the people and provided a handle for the separatist forces to step up their propaganda,’ said the editorial.
It is imperative that the state government and the central authorities take firm action against those responsible for the death of the three youth in order to restore normalcy, the editorial said.
The party said in the absence of a political initiative and the ineffectiveness of the National Conference-Congress coalition government, separatists like Syed Ali Geelani are having a free run.
‘It is time that the Manmohan Singh government gets down to the serious business of providing the political framework for the process of dialogue and the crystallisation of a political settlement within the state of Jammu and Kashmir,’ it added.
