STATE TIMES NEWS
Srinagar: Bihar MP Pappu Yadav on Wednesday denounced the firing by security forces in which three people were killed in Handwara town yesterday, saying the gun cannot resolve the Kashmir issue.
“I totally oppose it (the yesterday’s incident). I have never understood why politicians have kept the issue of Kashmir lingering. Successive governments have inflicted atrocities on people,” Yadav, who is on a visit here, said. “The gun is not a solution to the issue. It will only worsen the situation in the state,” he said.
Yadav said he would raise the Kashmir issue in Lok Sabha and asserted that “politicians are responsible for it. The common man wants peace, but Kashmir issue is getting entangled”. “Barring a few politicians, no one has made efforts to address the issue and it is seen through a prism of vote-bank,” he said. Civil society representatives should be involved in the India-Pakistan peace process. The Kashmir issue should be kept away from politics and treated as a social and cultural issue, the Bihar MP said. Asked about AFSPA, he said any organisation or armed force should not be given “unbridled” powers that they do not fear law. “It should be revoked,” he said.
Responding to a query on police action against outstation students at NIT Srinagar, Yadav said he was against using politics to resolve the issues of students. “The country belongs to all and students from any state have the right to study anywhere in the country,” he said and demanded that the role of the NIT administration in the matter be probed.
