J&K govt accepts two BJP ministers’ resignations

The two ministers had to resign following an outrage over their presence at Hindu Ekta Manch rally in Hiranagar last month

JAMMU: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti here on Sunday accepted the resignations of the two BJP ministers — Chander Parkash Ganga and Choudhary Lal Singh, who had to resign following an outrage over their presence at Hindu Ekta Manch rally in Hiranagar in March.

State BJP president Sat Sharma said he had handed the resignation letters to the CM on Saturday itself. “The chief minister has accepted their resignation letters. She will be sending them to the governor NN Vohra on Monday,” said a source in the chief minister’s office.

Forest minister Chaudhary Lal Singh and industries and commerce minister Chander Prakash Ganga had submitted their resignations from the PDP-BJP government on Friday.

However, sources in the governor’s house said the resignation letters have not yet reached the governor’s office.

BJP national general secretary Ram Madhav, however, said

a day before that the ministers had attended the March rally in Hiranagar to pacify people on the instructions of the party. As per the crime branch chargesheet, the minor girl was kidnapped, held in a temple in Kathua’s Rasana village, drugged, repeatedly raped and then murdered to scare her community out of the neighbourhood in Jammu.

Her body was found on January

17, seven days after she went missing.

On Saturday, Mehbooba had requested the chief justice of the J&K high court to form a special fast-track court to try suspects in the brutal rape and murder of the Kathua girl. Mehbooba had also said she will seek “exemplary punishment” for the accused and bring in death penalty for such crimes.