BJP workers in Kashmir leave for safe havens after Pulwama attack

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday constituted a core group committee comprising leaders like A.K. Antony, Ghulam Nabi Azad and P. Chidambaram, a manifesto committee and a publicity committee, in the wake of next year’s Lok Sabha elections.

Besides Antony, Azad and Chidambaram, the core group committee also includes Ashok Gehlot, Mallikarjun Kharge, Ahmed Patel, Jairam Ramesh, Randeep Singh Surjewala and K.C. Venugopal.

The manifesto committee has Chidambaram, Ramesh, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Salman Khurshid, Shashi Tharoor, Kumari Selja, Sushmita Dev, Rajeev Gowda, Mukul Sangma, Manpreet Singh Badal, Sam Pitroda, Sachin Rao, Bindu Krishnan, Raghuveer Meena, Balchnadra Mungekar, Meenakshi Natrajan, Rajni Patil, Tamradhwaj Sahu and Lalitesh Tripathii as its members.

The publicity committee includes Anand Sharma, Randeep Surjewala, Manish Tiwari, Pramod Tiwari, Rajeev Shukla, Bhakta Charan Das, Praveen Chakravarty, Milind Deora, Ketkar Kumar, Pawan Khera, V.D. Satheesan, Jaiveer Shergill and Divya Spandana. The BJP leadership has swung into action after terrorists killed its youth leader Shabir Ahmad Bhat on the eve of Eid. The killing has forced the party’s grassroots workers to flee to safe havens.

A senior police officer of south Kashmir, while talking to The Sunday Guardian, said that all the mainstream political workers in South Kashmir especially from the BJP have been told not to move without security cover in vulnerable areas. “Shabir Ahmad Bhat was killed because he had gone to his village in Pulwama without his personal secu- rity officer,” he said. Reports from South Kashmir said the government has already provided accommodation to the vulnerable BJP workers in the main district headquarters of South Kashmir with security cover. The killing of BJP worker Shabir Ahmad Bhat has invoked sharp criticism from the BJP leaders, especially from Amit Shah. Many rival political parties, including Congress, has accused the BJP of exploiting unemployed youths in Kashmir by giving them doles of money and gadgets.

“The BJP has been giving motorbikes, laptops and mobile phones to many youths in Kashmir to lure them into their ranks,” said state president of Congress Gh- ulam Ahmad Mir, while expressing grief on the killing of Shabir Ahmad Bhat. Mir was pointing to recent media reports which claimed that recently senior BJP leader Ram Madhav distributed motorbikes and gadgets among many BJP workers in Kashmir.

The killing of Shabir has forced many BJP’s youth workers to flee from their villages of South Kashmir to safer places under security. It is in place to mention that earlier terrorists had killed BJP youth leader Gowhar Bhat in South Kashmir in November 2017. The BJP is trying its best to spread its footprints in the Kashmir valley ahead of the parliamentary elections. The Jammu and Kashmir police has been in the line of fire after the Army started its Operation All Out in south Kashmir post Burhan Wani’s killing in 2016.

Eid celebrations could not be held in many villages of south Kashmir as on the eve of Eid, three cops were killed by terrorists when they had come to their respective villages to celebrate the festival with their families.

State Director General of Police, S.P. Vaid, while expressing grief on the killing of his cops said that they were killed because they had violated the advisory issued to them not to go to their homes without protection and prior information.

Talking to The Sunday Guardian, he said that the police has been issuing advisories to its cops and officers that they should not move without escort or protection into the terrorist infested villages.

According to the data released by the state police recently, two dozen policemen got killed in Kashmir during the current year.

Many of them, according to the police data, were killed while not being on active ists in 2018, more than half of them in south Kashmir.

The terrorists had in the recent past issued repeated warnings to the locals to resign from the state police.

According to the local reports, 26 cops resigned from the different districts of south Kashmir— most of them were Special Police Officers. In Tral, reports said that nine SPOs resigned and returned to their homes and to their families after militants is-