US wants normalcy road map, release of Kashmir detainees

WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday said it remains “deeply concerned” about the situation in Kashmir as it urged India to release all the political detainees and create a “road map” for the restoration of economic and political normalcy in the region.

“We remain deeply concerned about the situation in the Valley where daily life for nearly 8 million residents has been severely impacted since the decision to revoke Jammu and Kashmir’s special status and to detain without charge political leaders and restrict communications,” Alice Wells, the acting secretary of state for South and Central Asia, said. She, however, cited the restoration of postpaid mobile phone services in the region to state that there has been “some progress” on the issue.

On August 5, the central gov “The ernment nullified Article 370 of the Constitution that gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir and passed a bill to bifurcate the state into two Union Territories. Several security restrictions were imposed in J&K following the decision.

Wells said Pakistan-based terrorist groups like the Lashkar-eTaiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hizbul Mujahideen “obviously are the problem” to restoring normalcy in Kashmir as she called upon Islamabad to act against terror outfits.

constructive dialogue that we’d like to see between India and Pakistan must be based on Pakistan taking sustained and irreversible steps against militants and terrorists in its territory,” she said.

Testifying in a hearing on the human rights situation in South Asia, including in Kashmir, convened by the US House committee on foreign affairs on Tuesday, Wells said that Pakistan’s continued backing for groups engaged in cross-border terror was the “chief obstacle” to creating trust between the two sides.

During the hearing, Wells and assistant secretary Robert Destro of the US bureau of democracy and human rights faced pointed questions from members of Congress such as Ilhan Omar and Pramila Jayapal on the detention of people without charge, the lockdown in J&K, and the exclusion of 1.9 million people from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

WELLS SAID PAK-BASED TERRORIST GROUPS ARE PROBLEM TO RESTORING NORMALCY IN VALLEY AND CALLED UPON PAK TO ACT AGAINST TERROR OUTFITS