Governor’s appeal for restoring normalcy in Kashmir Valley

August 14, 2010 04:51 pm | Updated 04:51 pm IST - Srinagar

With Kashmir Valley in the grip of violence in the recent months, Governor N N Vohra on Saturday said normalcy would return only if all political parties and social and cultural organisations in the State work together.

“All political parties, social, cultural and religious organisations and all other stakeholders in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh should work together closely and determinedly for restoring normalcy and achieving the goal of peace, progress and prosperity,” he said in his Independence Day message.

Expressing grief over the cycle of violence in the last two months in the valley, he said, “Due to sad happenings in Kashmir in the past two months, normalcy in the valley has been disrupted by an unending series of stone pelting protests, burning of public property and attacks on the law enforcement agencies which has resulted in a large number of deaths.”

He said the loss of lives is an extremely sad consequence and asked security forces, whose personnel have also suffered significant injuries, to revisit their strategies and tactics of crowd control for securing maximum protection of human life.

Mr. Vohra said persons involved in the recent protests and all those who support them must recognise that the cycle of violence has resulted only in causing loss and grief and further enhancing cynicism and despair.

“Once normalcy is effectively restored a purposeful dialogue must commence with all those who have been agitating in the past months. The Centre on its part would need to launch and vigorously pursue a sustained political initiative in the State,” he said.

He said that a pragmatic initiative for early resolution of the political issues which concern the people of the State needs to be carried forward.

“Multiple meaningful dialogues are also required to be carried out among all the divergent groups and between them and the mainstream political parties in the State,” he said.

Mr. Vohra expressed grief over the setback to the education and tourism sectors in the valley due to the ongoing violence.

Referring to terrorism-related incidents in the valley, he said while there was a decline in terrorist activities in 2009, there has been a significant increase in infiltration attempts since the beginning of this year.

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