[Reader-list] JK militants, Naxals linked: Omar ‘Maoist Sympathisers Travelling To Srinagar, Organising Seminars’

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JK militants, Naxals linked: Omar
‘Maoist Sympathisers Travelling To Srinagar, Organising Seminars’
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Nov/20/jk-militants-naxals-linked-omar-47.asp

New Delhi, Nov 19: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah
Friday said that there were “visible and invisible links” among the
militants in his state, the Maoists, Left-leaning academicians and
supporters.
“We have no experience with Maoist insurgency even though of late we
find efforts being made to build bridges between the Maoists and
Naxalites of the rest of India with militants of Kashmir and also some
Left-thinking academicians and students in Jammu region as well,” Omar
said.
He was speaking at a seminar organised in New Delhi by the India Today
Group on “State of States in India”.
“We have seen evidence of it (of bridges being built between Maoists
and insurgents in Kashmir). A lot more effort to build a sort of
interaction. A lot of movement of known Maoist sympathisers now
travelling to Srinagar and organising seminars and conferences with
supporters of militant violence in Jammu and Kashmir as well,” he said
in reply to a question.
He alleged that not only were there visible links but also several
covert connections between the two.
“There are visible links on public platforms. There are also invisible
links that are sought to be built with universities and also the
active militants on the ground,” the Chief Minister said.
Omar was apparently alluding to Maoist sympathisers like
writer-activist Arundhati Roy who had expressed support to Kashmiri
separatists at a programme here where pro-Azadi slogans were also
raised. Later, Roy and others visited Jammu and Kashmir to espouse
their cause.
He said the state was now witnessing a new form of violence in the
form of stone-pelting.
“In Jammu and Kashmir, there has been a gradual shift in traditional
insurgency involving violence with guns, bombs and things like that to
a new dimension that emerged over the last three years starting in
2008, which is a more orchestrated civil protest sort of system,” Omar
said.
Chief Minister insisted that due to militancy and violence, Jammu and
Kashmir could never hope to compete with big states.
“We know we can’t compete with the big states. We know that in the
glamour quotient, we will never be able to match the Maharashtras,
Gujarats, Andhra Pradeshs and even our northern neighbours like
Himachal Pradesh,” he said.
Omar maintained that insurgency had affected all aspects of governance
in the state.
“What we have lived through is the actual effects of violence and
insurgency on every aspect of governance - on our ability to generate
investment, on our ability to actually govern, on our ability to
conduct elections in which people are free to vote as they wish to, in
our ability to provide services which people in other parts of the
country take for granted,” he said.