A day after Pakistani flags were waved by separatist leader Masarat Alam and his supporters at a rally in Jammu and Kashmir, he clarified that there was nothing new in it. “Hurriyat did not wave Pakistani flag but some boys did it. This is nothing new, it has happened earlier as well,” Alam said.
While the Central government has asked the state government to take strict action, J&K CM Mufti Mohammad Sayeed is non-committal on the issue. Seeking strict action, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told Sayeed that there can be no compromise on issues of national security. Mufti is likely to have been advised to take strong measures to prevent a repeat of what happened.
BJP, alliance partner of PDP in J&K also reacted sharply with Minister of State for Home Kiran Rijiju saying that the state government had been asked to act against those who had broken the law.
Senior BJP leader Ram Madhav also asserted BJP’s tough stand on the issue. “We have acted tough. We will not tolerate such pro Pakistani slogans. An FIR has been registered against Masarat. He is likely to be arrested soon. It is not the question of how long we will tolerate. But we have given a tough message to state government to take action immediately,” he said.
Alam was the mastermind behind the 2008 and 2010 protests and stone-pelting incidents in which over 100 people most of them teenage boys lost their lives. He was later arrested on the orders of the then Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah.
