Political tensions with possible law and order issues are likely to return to the Kashmir Valley later this month as pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) has called for Lal Chowk chalo march on January 26 as a “counteract” to BJP’s plan to hoist the tricolour at Srinagar’s historic centre square coinciding with the Republic Day.
JKLF chief Muhammad Yasin Malik on Thursday said, “People will congregate at Lal Chowk on that day and this will be a non-violent and democratic answer to the BJP’s plan to sting the Kashmiris and sprinkle salt on their wounds.”
Hurriyat Conference faction headed by Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq immediately endorsed the JKLF’s call accusing the BJP and its leadership of pursuing a chauvinistic methodology and for political reasons negating the peace process on Kashmir initiated by the party stalwart and former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Meanwhile, reports emanating from winter capital Jammu suggest that the state government is mulling a tough response to the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha’s planned march to Lal Chowk to prevent a law and order problem in the Valley. The government is against what is sees is Opposition BJP’s “misadventure.” But, at the same time, is also seriously mulling over the option of stopping the party’s Rashtriya Ekta Yatra or national unity march which started from Kolkata on Wednesday and it is expected to reach Srinagar on January 26, where its activists led by Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha president Anurag Thakur want to hoist the tricolour, at Jammu and then fly him and some other senior activists to Srinagar for the flag hoisting. That is what was exactly done when the then BJP chief Dr Murli Manohar Joshi led a similar march to Srinagar during the heyday of militancy in Kashmir Valley in early 1990s. BJP chief Nitin Gadkari on Wednesday launched the Rashtriya Ekta Yatra from Kolkata. The party has defended the decision of its youth wing and said that Kashmir was an integral part of India.