Mufti’s Govt not to permit Lalchowk Tricolour show

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

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SRINAGAR, May 14: With most of the separatist groups strongly opposing a Delhi-based outfit’s plan to hoist the Indian Tricolour at the business nerve centre of Lalchowk on May 16, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s PDP-BJP government has decided to detain the activists of ‘Youth For Nation’ in Jammu and at Srinagar Airport and not to issue permission for the show.

Highly placed sources in the State government disclosed to State Times that no show of hoisting the Tricolour would be permitted at Lalchowk on May 16^th. “Instructions are being flashed to SSPs of Jammu, Kathua and Srinagar to arrest anybody who would try to disrupt peace and create a law and order situation by the proposed flag hoisting on Saturday”, said a senior Police official. Unconfirmed reports said that some of the group activists, who had arrived in Jammu on Thursday, were being detained.

SSP Jammu Uttam Chand, however, insisted that nobody had been detained or arrested. “This is not a fact. We haven’t detained anybody. We only prevented a group of Congress and Youth Congress activists on Wednesday as they were attempting to travel in the opposite direction of that day’s scheduled convoy of traffic on Jammu-Srinagar Highway”, Uttam Chand told State Times.

SSP Srinagar Amit Kumar as well as Deputy Commissioner of Srinagar Farooq Ahmad Lone maintained that “to the best of our knowledge” no individual or group had applied for permission to a show of flag hoisting at Lalchowk. Permission to such a demonstration, political or non-political, is a must as restrictions under section 144 of Cr PC remain in force without break in all districts of Kashmir valley.

BJP’s MLC Surinder Ambardar and incharge for South Kashmir Vir Saraf claimed that the Delhi-based group, which had announced to hoist the Tricolour at Lalchowk, was in no way associated with BJP. Notwithstanding their clarification, an impression is gathering ground in the Valley that the organisers of the show were enjoying support of both BJP as well as RSS.

Several people on Facebook circulated appeals asking “all Kashmiris” to march to Lalchowk on May 16^th to foil the attempts of “communal forces” to hoist the Indian national flag. The posters typeset in Urdu were issued by “Sangbaaz Kashmiri” (an anonymous stone pelter).

In a significant development, formidable militant group Hizbul Mujahideen’s “Supreme Commander” and Chairman of Pakistan-based United Jijad Council, Syed Salah-ud-din, issued a strong reaction on Thursday. He alleged that on the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diktat “RSS, Bajrang Dal and other right wing elements have entered the Valley to carry out slaughter of Muslims”.  He called the act of hoisting the Tricolour “in presence of lakhs of forces” as “no bravery but an act of cowardice”. He urged the international community to keep close vigil over the situation in Kashmir as the “communal mindset of right wing parties are hell- bent to create a stir in Kashmir”.

“Mufti government must not support Modi’s nefarious plans as it would prove costlier for it”, Salah-ud-din threatened.

A number of Kashmir’s separatist and guerrilla groups have already opposed the Delhi-based group’s plan.

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