NE NEWS SERVICE
CHANDIGARH, DEC 16
All the detained leaders of Kashmir will be freed soon to resume their political activities, said BJP General Secretary Ram Dev here on Sunday.
Participating in a panel discussion at the concluding session of the Military Literary Festival, Ram Madhav used a Hindi proverb to emphasise that tough action was required against Kashmiri separatists. “Laaton ke bhoot baaton se nahi mante,” he said during a panel discussion here in response to a point raised by former RAW chief A S Dulat that the Kashmir problem cannot be resolved without talks and negotiations.
He also said they wanted that detained political leaders in J&K come out and resume their political activity. Several opposition leaders, including NC chief Farooq Abdullah; his son and former CM Omar Abdullah; and ex-PDP CM Mehbooba Mufti are among those under detention since August 5.
“Very soon, we want to allow them to come out,” Madhav said on the concluding day of the Military Literature Festival here.
Madhav, however, claimed that detention of all political leaders does not mean they are anti-national. “Their arrest is under preventive detention and they would be released soon,” he said during the debate on ‘Article 370 and the Death-Knell of Terrorism’.
When asked if he can specify the time period by which the detained politicians will be released, Madhav said, “See, it is a process which is going on continuously. We have allowed some four to five senior leaders to go and resume their activities. They have been freed from the preventive detention, like that the process will go on”.
When Dulat argued that the Centre should adopt former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s vision of Kashmiriyat and should talk and negotiate with all sections in J&K, Madhav said, “Nobody needs to teach the government that we should negotiate.” He said the real definition of ‘Kashmiriyat’ would be “when we see Kashmiri Pandits returning to their homes”.
