Date:30/06/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/06/30/stories/2008063059831300.htm

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BJP asks Centre to rush Central forces to Kashmir

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday asked the Centre to rush adequate para-military forces to Jammu and Kashmir to contain the situation there and threatened that any surrender to “separatists and anti-national forces” on the Amarnath land transfer issue would spark nationwide protests.

“The Centre should rush in adequate para-military forces to contain the situation and send a strong message to separatist and anti-national forces to save the sovereignty of India and the autonomy of the Amarnath Shrine,” BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said in a statement here.

Terming the withdrawal of the PDP from the government as a “joint political drama,” he said “it was enacted by the Congress and the PDP to distance themselves from the decision to allot land to the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board (SASB).”

The BJP’s minority cell leader also said the transfer of land to the temple board was a golden opportunity to provide a “healing touch to the minority Hindu community in the state.”

“It would help build bridges of harmony and understanding between the people of Kashmir and the rest of the State and country,” he said, adding the issue was used to polarise society by misleading the people of the state.

Mr. Naqvi criticised the PDP for attempting to “tear apart the state’s fragile secular fabric.”