Urges Centre to take up issue with Pakistan; Mufti terms Kathua and Samba attacks as a “conspiracy” to derail peace process

Amid ruckus in the House, the J&K Assembly on Sunday passed a resolution against the recent militant attacks in Kathua and Samba areas in Jammu and urged the Centre to take up the issue with Pakistan.

“If they (Pakistan) want peace, reconciliation, then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif, its establishment must control them (militants),” Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed said in the Assembly on Saturday.

The Assembly witnessed pandemonium with the BJP legislators up in the arms raising anti-Pakistan slogans and with National Conference legislators headed by former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah staging a walkout after their adjournment motion condemning the attacks in Jammu was rejected.

Mr. Sayeed, who had blamed Friday’s Kathua militant attack on non-state actors, yet again blamed the non-state actors calling their actions un-Islamic while putting the responsibility of controlling the militants on Pakistan, which, he said, was itself a victim of extremism.

“Who were the people who attacked churches in Karachi? Who launched attacks in Peshawar? Who is Lakhvi?” Mr. Sayeed said in the Assembly referring to the attackers of the two recent attacks in Jammu. “They (militants) are not being taught Islam, I don’t know what they are being taught so they go out to kill people.”

Continuing to use the Islamic refrain to condemn the attacks and connecting the Kathua and Samba attacks to mosque blasts in Karachi, Peshawar school attack and to the violence in the Middle East, Mr. Sayeed is reaching out to the Kashmir Valley and creating a narrative within which J&K and Pakistan are suffering at the hands of a common enemy (extremists).

BJP leader and Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, however, told the reporters that Pakistan and ISI were to blame for the attacks and said that they (attacks) could not have happened without the connivance of the (Pakistan) border forces.

The opposition NC criticised the government for its contradictory statements about the attacks and called the BJP’s actions in the Assembly “drama” that while they themselves were part of the Government, they were raising slogans and seeking action.

“I had brought a resolution in the House to debate the issue of the attacks and contradictory statements by the BJP, the government and the security officers,” Mr. Rana told reporters outside the Assembly.

“While the CM is blaming non-state actors, his deputy is blaming Pakistan, another BJP minister is blaming Army and BSF, and the Army and Police itself are giving contradictory statements.”

Militants attacked a police station in Kathua on Friday killing two paramilitary personnel, a policeman and a civilian besides loosing their own lives, while on Saturday militants unsuccessfully tried to enter into a Army Camp in Samba. Both the militants were killed after an hour-long gunfight.