J&K Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari on Tuesday urged the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to fulfill the promise of granting statehood status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Bukhari, as per KNO, also stated that the government of India should also announce an “unemployment package for the swelling number of unemployed youth of UT”.
He alleged that the administration in J&K is “defunct and the Srinagar-Jammu highway blockade has triggered a serious crisis which needs to be investigated and the contractors who played with the mountains for constructing a four-lane highway, need to be booked”.
Addressing a press conference in Jammu, Bukhari said that Apni Party “re-started politics” after the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019.
“We met PM Modiji, Home Minister Amit Shahji and discussed the 17 point agenda. Today, we urge the PM and the HM to fulfill the promise they made on the floor of the house,” Bukhari said.
While welcoming the new industrial package, he said that old industries should also be covered under the new package. “There are many youth who are still behind the bars, they should be released. Security situation has improved. Misguided youth are returning. Militancy is on a decline. There are educated youth sitting idle in homes. Let there be an unemployment pension package at the rate of Rs 10,000 per youth, a month,” he said.
As per Bukhari, there are seven lakh unemployed youth in J&K.
“We buy missiles worth billions of rupees, can’t there be an unemployment package,” he said.
To a query about PAGD, he said it was “an alliance of the politicians for the politicians to show a new face to the people”.
“It was expected to crumble, but it crumbled before we expected it to fall,” he said.
Regarding the recent snowfall, Bukhari said that the administration in J&K “got buried under a few inches of snow and the Srinagar-Jammu highway closure has added to the misery of the people of UT”. “Earlier, we used to witness the highway closure once a month, now the situation has reached a point where it remains blocked for the entire month almost,” he said.
He urged the government of India to send a “fact finding team to J&K to get the real situation on ground”.
“Nothing is good on the ground. Administration is defunct and there is no development taking place anywhere. Let a team assess the ground situation beyond the computerized representations,” Bukhari said. He said there are “no milk streams flowing in J&K as being projected wrongly by some quarters.”
The former J&K minister also sought a prove “at the highest level and those who cut the mountains on the pretext of carving a four lane highway, should be held accountable and booked under national security act”. “There is a serious crisis of essential supply in Kashmir as high is closed for so many days and won’t re-open due to damage to a bridge at Ramban,” Bukhari said.