Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 07 May 2018 | Page 26
NORTHERN TANGO
The Glue of
Contradiction
Both the BJP and the PDP know it’s best to carry on
together despite pulling J&K in opposite directions
by Naseer Ganai in Srinagar
O
VER the past week, hundreds of
students across Kashmir, inc
luding a large number of
women, have been taking to the
streets demanding justice for
the eight-year-old Bakarwal girl
who was raped and murdered in Jam
mu’s Kathua district this January.
Worried that the massive demonstra
tions might lead to another pro-azadi
upsurge on the lines of 2016 and 2017,
government forces resorted to heavy
teargas shelling and pellet firing to dis
perse the demonstrators, leading to
stone-pelting by students trying to
hold their ground. Several protesters
were injured by pellets in their eyes.
26 OUTLOOK 7 May 2018
At a loss to understand why the stu-
dents are protesting, J&K government
spokesperson and PDP leader Naeem
Akhtar asked, “What is the occasion for
protests and stone-pelting when the
(Kathua) case is solved, with the accused
in custody and facing trial? Shouldn’t
they be attending classes instead?” Edu-
cation minister Altaf Bukhari, in fact,
threatened to close down educational
institutions in the Valley if the students
didn’t stop protesting.
While Kashmir was being rocked by
protests for justice to the raped and
murdered girl, Jammu was witness to a
procession of another sort on April 19,
led by sacked J&K environment and
forest minister Chaudhary Lal Singh of
the BJP, seeking the transfer of the case
Photographs: PTI
POLES APART Students protest in
Srinagar, demanding ‘Justice for Asifa’
from the J&K Police to the CBI. In sharp
contrast to the protests in the Valley,
there was no attempt to stop the march
in Jammu, or the one in Kathua the next
day by the J&K National Panthers Party
raising the same demand. Lal Singh had
resigned along with then industries
minister Chander Prakash Ganga after
widespread outrage over th eir participa-
tion in the March 1 rally of the Hindu
Ekta Manch in support of the accused
arrested in the case.
Despite the protests in Kashmir and
Jammu taking contrary stands on the
same issue and revealing the highly pol
arised nature of the state’s polity, both
the ruling coalition partners—the PDP
and the BJP—claim the alliance would
continue to bring the two regions closer.
Clearly, it won’t be easy. For starters, the
two parties differ over how the Kathua
atrocity should be investigated, with the
BJP showing lack of trust in the police
force under the government it is part of.
And yet the coalition, going by how it has
weathered the storms emanating from
differences over almost everything so far,
hopes to tide over the latest faceoff as well