EU team was on private visit: Reddy

OPPOSITION PARTIES HAVE ATTACKED THE GOVERNMENT OVER THE KASHMIR VISIT OF 23 MEMBERS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (MEPS) AFTER INDIAN POLITICIANS AND MPS WERE NOT ALLOWED

NEW DELHI: A group of European parliamentarians that recently toured Kashmir was on a “private visit” to the country, the government informed Parliament on Wednesday.

Union minister of state for home G Kishan Reddy also said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha that an Indian delegation of parliamentarians was not allowed to visit Kashmir due to security concerns.

Opposition parties have attacked the government over the Kashmir visit of 23 members of the European Parliament (MEPS) after Indian politicians and MPS were not allowed to travel to the Valley after the nullification of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status on August 5. Reddy was responding to a set of questions that sought to know which institution organised and bore the expenses of this Kashmir tour, and whether the institution that organised it was working as a coordinating institution for the central government.

He said the MEPS “paid a private visit to India from October 28, 2019, to November 1, 2019, at the invitation of the International Institute for Nonaligned Studies, a Delhi-based think tank.”

In a separate reply, the minister said such visits or exchanges promote “deeper” people-to-people contact.

“...the MEPS had expressed their desire that they would like to visit Kashmir to understand how terrorism is affecting India and how this has been a challenge for India,” Reddy said.

They got a sense of the threat of terrorism and how terrorism poses a threat to India, especially in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, he said.

Reddy also said a total of 5,161 “preventive arrests” have been made in the Kashmir valley from the eve of the nullification of Article 370 on August 5. It includes politicians, separatists and stonepelters, the minister said.

“With a view to prevent commission of offences involving breach of peace and activities prejudicial to the security of the state and maintenance of the public order, 5,161 preventive arrests, including stone pelters, miscreants, OGWS , separatists and political workers, were made since August 4, 2019, in Kashmir Valley,” Reddy said. Out of these, the minister said, 609 persons are presently under detention, out of which approximately 218 are stone-pelters.