Rhetoric increased attacks: Omar

Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, on Thursday said the escalation in violence on Line of Control (LoC) and the spurt in militant attacks on security forces is the direct fall out of New Delhi’s post-surgical strike rhetoric.

“What we saw after the ‘surgical strikes’ was New Delhi indulging in rhetoric provoking Pakistan again and again. Statements like ‘let alone attacking us, Pakistan won’t dare to look at India’ from now on were issued,” Omar told reporters on the sidelines of his address to party workers in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

“Even the defense minister threatened Pakistan of taking away both its eyes and handing it back. We are now bearing its consequences,” he said.

Referring to surge in skirmishes along the LoC and the attack at the army base in Nagrota in Jammu, the former CM said, “After ‘surgical strikes’, the government, instead of issuing rhetorical statements, should have kept mum. The government should have focused on the their job instead of indulging in unnecessary talking.”

He said the job of the government is to work and that of the opposition is to talk, but here the roles have been reversed.

“After demonetisation, the government claimed terrorism will be wiped out but nothing of that sort has happened,” Omar said.

Saying dialogue is the only way forward, he added the onus for creating conducive atmosphere for it lies with both New Delhi and Islamabad. “I agree that right now, the atmosphere is not conducive for talks. But in order to create that atmosphere, both countries have to take the initiative. Pakistan can’t expect only us to take the initiative and vice versa,” Omar said.

Earlier, Omar had hit out at Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti for failing to reach out to people in south Kashmir, who bore the maximum brunt of the violence during the recent unrest. “Where is that Mehbooba Mufti who used to shed tears for people when Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah were in chair? Today the youth – who were promised jobs and a sense of security, are waiting for a few words of sympathy from her. But she is busy taking scooty rides, discussing her college days and how she used to have golgappas (panipuri) then,” Omar said.

He said he had told the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi that economic packages are fine, but it is not the alternative to solving the Kashmir issue.