4,500 stonepelters in Kashmir to get amnesty
GOODWILL FIRS against firsttime offenders to be withdrawn as new dialogue process starts
JAMMU: Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has announced that the Centre will give amnesty for firsttime “offenders of stone-pelting”, a move that could see police drop charges against 4,500 people, most of them youngsters.
Her announcement came through a series of late-night tweets on Wednesday and is part of the Centre’s attempts to soothe frayed nerves in the Valley.
“It gives me immense satisfaction to restart the process of withdrawing Firs against first time offenders of stone-pelting. My government had initiated the process in May, 2016 but it was unfortunately stalled due to the unrest later that year.”
Police sources said about 11,000 Firs were registered in stone-pelting incidents following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander Burhan Wani in July last year.
Police said they were looking into the cases to ascertain who can be let off. “some reports say 4,500 boys are first-time offenders but we are examining the cases to arrive at the number,” said sp Vaid, the state director general of police. Vaid said the process will start when “the government order comes”.
Mehbooba said the government’s initiative is based on recommendations by the Centre’s interlocutor Dineshwar sharma, a former Intelligence Bureau (IB) chief tasked with starting a peace process in the Kashmir.
the scheme has been announced as a show of “good faith ahead of sharma’s second visit to the state later this month”.
sharma told Ht he made the recommendations after meeting a cross section of people in the NOVEMBER21 rs reporp ed thee proposedpropose amnesty scheme on November 21
state. “...It is for the people to say whether the move is good or not,” sharma said to a question whether the scheme will help him gain trust of the Kashmiris.
“this confidence-building measure reaffirms the Central government’s commitment towards changing the narrative in J&K ...” Mufti said in another tweet. Opposition National Conference (NC), however, said the initiative should have been taken by the state government. “Centre’s big amnesty push”! Looks like Mehbooba Mufti’s only job is to take instructions from the Central Govt. this should have been a state Govt decision,” Omar Abdullah said in a tweet.