The suggestion to remove the chief minister seems untenable, particularly since no alternative candidate is available to the Congress.
Pressure is building on the Centre to sack key members of the Kashmir government, including chief minister Omar Abdullah. Suggestions are coming in for taking action against the security
establishment.
The call for Omar’s removal came from certain Kashmir-centric “intellectuals and academicians” in their interactions with top officials in the prime minister’s office. They believe the Omar’s removal will pacify separatists and bring peace.
The suggestion to remove the chief minister seems untenable, particularly since no alternative candidate is available to the Congress, which is a partner in the National Conference government in the state.
The idea of imposing Governor’s Rule (it’s not President’s Rule in J&K) is not acceptable to the Centre as it would not like to be directly involved in the state administration, since this could give separatists more rope.
The threat over Omar might die down sooner than later, but questions are being asked about the absence of his father, union minister Farooq Abdullah, from Kashmir. He has been camping in London for the past week, where his wife lives. Abdullah family sources dismissed reports of differences between father and son and clarified that the minister was in London because of his wife’s illness.
Even as the Centre struggles to bring peace to the Valley, new evidence has cropped up suggesting that Pakistan could be instigating the brigades of stone-throwers. The transcript of a telephone conversation between two Hurriyat separatists showed that they were discussing the killing of at least 15 people during a rally in Srinagar.
A highly-placed home ministry source claimed to have found evidence to establish that money was being sent from Dubai to keep Kashmir’s army of stone-pelters going. Funds were being routed through money transfer agency, Western Union, and there have been transactions of up to Rs10 lakh.
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