No Kashmir talks until violence ends, says BJP chief

The government will not hold talks in Jammu and Kashmir unless the violence stops, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah said here yesterday.“The government has already clarified before the Supreme Court that it will not hold any talks unless the violence stops in the state,” Shah told reporters, adding that the government and security agencies are working on a strategy to tackle the situation in the restive state.Shah’s statement came within hours after Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti Prime Minister Narendra Modi “alone pull Kashmir out” of the present quagmire.“Whatever decision he takes, the nation will support him,” she said in Srinagar.Referring to Modi’s Pakistan visit last year, Mufti praised his “strength” and said: “It was him who visited Pakistan during heightened tensions between the two countries”.The Kashmir Valley is in the throes of a students’ uprising that started on April 15 after security forces entered a college in Pulwama and roughed up students there.Militant attacks on security forces, political activities and bank robberies in south Kashmir are posing a serious challenge to both the security forces and the government as large areas are believed to be heavily infested by militants.Meanwhile at least 25 students were injured yesterday in Handwara town following clashes with security personnel after a Pakistani flag was hoisted on a college building.Students of the Handwara Degree College marched towards the market square after hoisting the flag, police said.Police used tear smoke shells to disperse them.“Students had resorted to intense stone pelting after they were prevented from carrying out the march in Handwara town”, the police said.In another development, the army caught a Pakistani boy in Nowshera sector of the Line of Control, whom they suspect might have been sent across to probe infiltration routes, an officer said yesterday.“A patrol of the Indian Army along the LoC apprehended a 12-year-old intruder from Pakistan late on Friday evening. He crossed the LoC in Rajouri district,” Defence Ministry spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Manish Mehta said.The boy, Ashfaq Ali Chauhan, was identified as the son of a retired Baluch Regiment soldier Hussain Malik. They are residents of Dunger Pel village in Bhimber district in the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Mehta said.Chauhan was found moving suspiciously near the LoC. On being challenged by the patrol, the boy immediately surrendered, he added.“It is suspected that the boy was sent by terrorists in connivance with Pakistan Army to probe routes for infiltration across the LoC,” the spokesman said.The intruder has been handed over to the police by the army for further investigations, he added.Also yesterday, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley said that the Indian Army was capable and competent and would take appropriate action in the wake of the alleged mutilation of bodies of two Indian soldiers by the Pakistan Army along the LoC early this week.“The Indian Army is disciplined. It responded in an effective manner in surgical strikes. In incident like this (mutilation), like every Indian I have full confidence in the Indian Army. It will take appropriate action. Beyond that we must learn to trust our Indian Army,” Jaitley told NDTV.Replying to a question on the clamour for tough action against Pakistan, he said, “What they (army) will decide, we leave it to them. These are not issues that can be determined in public domain. The army decides.”Meanwhile, Information and Broadcasting Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has expressed concern over the Pakistani channels being aired illegally in Jammu and Kashmir and has asked the state government to stop the transmission.According to a senior official who did not wish to be named, channels from several countries including Pakistan are being illegally transmitted by local cable operators in the valley and are spreading ‘anti-India’ propaganda.According to the list of permitted private satellite TV channels as on March 31 released by the ministry, a total of 888 channels are authorised to air their content across the nation.Last year, the government had cracked down on Islamic preacher Zakir Naik’s free-to-air channel Peace TV which was said to have inspired Bangladesh terror attack on a café.