Sorrow in Srinagar!
By the Editor

AMID the resurgence of a novel and convivial epoch, a set of militants attacked a Complex in Srinagar, that was housing the travelers of the historic Kashmir Bus Service, which went into marvelous motion on Thursday.

As the reports say two militants were killed, in exchange of fire with Indian forces, while six other persons were seemingly injured. Subsequently the Complex was set ablaze, yet passengers remained safe.

Apex leaders of Pakistan, with President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, atop have condemned the tragic episode in strongest words.

Overtly the attack on the Srinagar Complex represents the moral and political bankruptcy of the architects of this cataclysm.

It has exposed their monstrous motives, to deprive the estranged Kashmiri families, of an opportunity in almost half a century to reunite after decades of agony of separation and denial to the humanitarian right, without any slipup on their part.

Nonetheless, it is encouraging, that the ill-fated incident did not deter India and Pakistan, to launch the bus service onto the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad route, as the buses took to the path for their respective destinations, as per scheduled.

It is, however, pertinent to pause and ponder as to who are interested in undermining this vital CBM, which has been initiated by Islamabad and New Delhi on the Kashmir issue.

Pragmatically, the Kashmiri freedom-seekers, who are struggling for right to self-determination and liberation from the Indian yoke, can not be expected, to destabilize the bus service, as it is designed to facilitate their own families to exchange visits and cannot be perceived to negate their zest of schema.

With such a milieu, it will be apt and appropriate that the Indian authorities should scrutinize the incident, with an open mind rather than merely implicating Kashmiri militants out of the traditional prejudice against them.

Irrespective of its implications for the bus service, the incident has certainly proven that there is hardly any room to escape to the fact, that the solution of the Kashmir Issue in keeping with the Kashmiris’ aspirations, is all the more an essential pre-requisite to peace in the India held-Kashmir.

We feel optimistic that India will not be oblivious to this ground reality and will, respond positively to its pledges vis-à-vis the Kashmiris’ right to self-determination, at the earliest.

What’s needed, however, is truthfulness and sincerity, will and flexibility to trounce the existing fallacious and imaginary view that ‘Kashmir is integral part of India’.

As the entire world is well-acquainted with the reality that the people of the Himalayan State of Jammu & Kashmir have proven, beyond any shadow of doubt, that no amount of State terrorism and brutalization can shrink their spirit to struggle for the achievement of their inalienable right to freedom, which they deserve by all parameters of international laws, based on justice.

While censuring the hideous act of assault on the Srinagar Complex, we welcome the resumption of the Kashmir bus service, across the Line of Control [LoC], which we hope shall, eventually prove to be the harbinger of much-awaited lasting peace in South Asia via the settlement of the Kashmir dispute, which is ought to reflect the aspirations of the bona fide owners and title-holder of the State, the Kashmiris.

Simultaneously, we pay our inmost compliments to the leaders of, both India and Pakistan, for their political acumen and sagacity for opting a spectacular course by initiating the Kashmir Bus Service, as a meaningful limb of the Confidence Building Measures [CBMs], for the emergence of the dawn of durable peace and tranquility, in this part of the Orb, to make sure that all types of perils of poverty and hunger get vanished, exclusively in India.

And instead an era of affluence blesses the humankind, onto the two soils, for all times to come sans reliance of overseas help or assistance in any mode or manner, from the aliens of each-other.

Factually, it is not a complex task. The only obligatory feature, to accomplish such a goal, is to shed India's traditional style of egoism and instead bow before the ground realities, and of-course the writing on the wall, as the foremost.

India is well aware that it can not keep the people of Jammu & Kashmir under bondage, till time without end. It shall have to make an exit, one day. So why not, right now, when things are moving towards pleasant and friendly environs?● 

 -  Mumtaz Hamid Rao
www.MumtazRao.net