The Hindu : National : PDP says it will join Muzaffarabad march

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PDP says it will join Muzaffarabad march

Shujaat Bukhari

Reopen traditional routes, says Mehbooba Mufti

Opening up of Muzaffarabad-Srinagar road offers win-win opportunity
Authorities gearing up to thwart the march

SRINAGAR: The People’s Democratic Party on Sunday announced its support to a march to Muzaffarabad planned by the Valley’s Fruit Growers Association. It had also decided to join it.

PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said the party workers and sympathisers would be led by senior leaders Abdul Aziz Zargar and Mohammad Dilawar Mir and they would constitute a part of the main caravan. She reiterated the urgency of fully operationalising the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road for passenger and goods traffic.

In a statement, Ms. Mehbooba claimed that the economic blockade against Kashmiris only underscored the importance of this vital road for “our economic survival.”

“Denial of access”

Ms. Mehbooba said the PDP had all along been stressing the need for reopening all traditional routes, which offered Kashmir unlimited access to outside world. The denial of this access over the past 60 years had acted as a constraint to the State’s growth on the economic and social front, she claimed. The PDP leader said the march should be seen as the “assertion of Kashmir’s inalienable right” to trade and travel without restrictions.

Bus service

The PDP, Ms. Mehbooba said, had effectively brought the need for opening up of Kashmir on the centre stage. She claimed that the success in the shape of Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service owed to her party leadership and the sacrifices of its cadres. She paid tributes to the martyrs who sacrificed their lives at Uri on April 7, 2004 when the PDP launched its first march in support of the demand to open the highway.

Burning issue

The PDP president said opening up of the road between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar along with other links such as Suchetgarh-Sialkote, Rawlakot-Pooch and Kargil-Skardu offered a win-win opportunity to India, Pakistan and the people of the State. The two governments could ignore this burning issue only at the cost of the peace process, she warned. She said the India-Pakistan dialogue must focus on this subject as the situation could not brook any further delay in restoring regular passenger and goods traffic on the road in view of the emerging scenario in Jammu.

Additional forces

Meanwhile, the authorities are gearing up to thwart the march. This was also indicated by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who concluded his two-day visit along with the all-party delegation. Sources said the deployment of police and paramilitary personnel had been increased in north Kashmir. Separatist leaders who had supported the march were placed under house arrest.

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