Jethmalani equates Omar Govt with Hitler’s Nazi regime

‘Bureaucratic arrogance, lawlessness, corruption, nepotism have become order of the day in this Police state’

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Jun 6: NDA Government’s Law Minister and senior BJP leader, Ram Jethmalani, who has revived once Vajpayee-supported Kashmir Committee after exactly 10 years, today equated Omar Abdullah’s coalition government with the German dictator Hitler’s Nazi regime. While calling for total revocation of J&K Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the eminent lawyer observed that bureaucratic arrogance, lawlessness, corruption, nepotism and favouritism had become the order of the day in the “Police State” of Jammu & Kashmir.

Jethmalani’s 4-member committee, which includes lawyer V K Grover, a local youth Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra and Delhi-based activist Madhu Kishwar, whose love for PDP and hatred for NC has been the talk of the town in Kashmir, called on most of the separatist leaders including those from both factions of Hurriyat Conference, JKLF and others before concluding its maiden visit to the Valley today. During the five-day-long schedules, it also met the opposition PDP leaders and families of the youth who have been detained in different jails since last year.

Significantly, there was no interaction with any of the Government functionaries like Governor, Chief Minister, Chief Secretary, Corps Commander or Director General of Police. In an ice-breaking event, Jethmalani’s group in fact began its deliberations with a detailed meeting with the separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani at his Hyderpora residence. Journalists M J Akbar and Dileep Padgaonkar besides New Delhi-based Kashmiri lawyer and Congress activist, Ashok Bhan, have disassociated themselves with the committee that had met most of the mainstream and separatist leaders with evident support of BJP-led NDA Government in 2001.

While addressing a crowded news conference at the end of its five-day tour in Srinagar, members of so-called Kashmir Committee dismissed the coalition government as a regime, that, according to them, had severed all of its contact with the people of Jammu & Kashmir. “It’s completely a Police state. Police and government agencies are continuing their atrocities on people with impunity. There have become law unto themselves”, Jethmalani said. He equated Omar Abdullah-led coalition government with Hitler’s Nazi regime and complained that freedom of expression had been suppressed in Jammu & Kashmir and mediapersons declining to toe the government’s line were being harassed and victimized with even raids on their houses and offices.

Jethmalani strongly advocated total revocation of “draconian laws” like J&K AFSPA and the Public Safety Act (PSA) that gave unlimited powers and immunity to government agencies in proceeding against the state subjects. He said it was “strange” that detainees like ‘Gen’ Moosa had been languishing in jails without trial for the last over 15 years and those getting the detention orders quashed from courts of law were being re-arrested and detained afresh for years and decades. He urged the state government to reach out to families of the victims of last year’s street agitation and demonstrations. According to Jethmalani, Government should not only tender its apologies on the over 100 killings but also provide material relief to the affected families.

Jethmalani said that current situation in J&K was akin to that of Emergency days of 1975 when democratic rights had been completely suppressed and the executive was free of all accountability in the country. “We are pained to find that lawlessness, absence of total accountability, administrative breakdown, bureaucratic arrogance, corruption, nepotism and favouritism have become order of the day in this Police state”, Jethmalani said while referring to what is known as governance deficit in the official jargon.

Once Minister of Law and Justice in Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government at the Centre, Jethmalani said that he would organize a group of counsels in Delhi that would provide all possible legal assistance to the political detainees of J&K languishing in different jails. He alleged that the state government had adopted “criminal silence” over the detention of a Kashmiri civilian in Gujarat. “We’ll soon pursue this matter with the Government of Gujarat”, Jethmalani said.

With respect to the committee’s agenda of finding a political solution to the 64-year-old Kashmir problem, Jethmalani said that no resolution could be imposed from Delhi or Islamabad. He said it was for the people of Jammu and Kashmir themselves to find and implement an all-inclusive solution that, he asserted, should be acceptable to people of all shades of political opinion, regions and religions. He also advised the Valley’s separatist leadership to unite and come forward with a practicable roadmap of the Kashmir resolution.

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