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May 10, 2018•Update: May 10, 2018
By Zahid Rafiq
SRINAGAR, Jammu and Kashmir
A day after the pro-India chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, urged Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce a unilateral cease-fire for the Muslim month of Ramadan, its own coalition partners Bhartiya Janata Party shot down the proposal.
“We don’t want any unilateral cease-fire at this juncture,” Jammu and Kashmir state BJP spokesmen Arun Gupta and Sunil Sethi told a press conference in Jammu on Thursday.
The spokesmen said that they did not want to give any breather to the militants, which they thought a month-long cease-fire by Indian forces would supply.
“We don’t believe in a unilateral cease-fire as it is not in the national interest. We think at present no relaxation should be given. Anyone who joins the militancy is killed in three days,” they said.
Earlier on Wednesday, the J-K chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti, chaired a meeting with representations from all political parties and later told the media that a unilateral cease-fire would provide relief to the people and help create a better atmosphere in the region.
"Everyone [in the meeting] agreed that we should appeal to the centre to consider a cease-fire like the unilateral cease-fire in Vajpayee's time [former BJP Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee] in Ramadan and Amarnath Yatra [the annual Hindu pilgrimage],” she said.
This year in Kashmir began with even more bloodshed as over 36 civilians, over 60 militants, and 14 Indian soldiers have been killed. Indian forces, since Operation All Out last year, have been hunting down militants and killing them, mostly in southern Kashmir.
The killing of the militants almost always leads to civilian protests over which Indian forces open fire. According to the Health Department, over 300 people have been blinded and maimed since April alone.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.
The two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- since they were partitioned in 1947, two of them over Kashmir.
Also, in Siachen glacier in northern Kashmir, Indian and Pakistani troops have fought intermittently since 1984. A cease-fire came into effect in 2003.
Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.
According to several human rights groups, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.
