We Will Lose Kashmir By 2016

November 11, 2011

Are We Ready to face this Situation please read the statement of :Lieutenant-General Syed Ata Hasnain, who commands the Srinagar-based XV Corps.

The Army's top commander in Jammu and Kashmir has said the country could be compelled to grant the State independence by 2016 if government plans to lift the controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act from some areas go ahead, highly-placed security sources have told The Hindu.

The assertion was made on Wednesday in an over hour-long presentation to the Unified Headquarters, the State's top coordination body for security, by Lieutenant-General Syed Ata Hasnain, who commands the Srinagar-based XV Corps.

Army officials would not confirm the contents of the presentation, but three officials present at the meeting separately provided The Hindu with the same account of what was said.

The presentation also included a slide, which asserted that while the State people were seeking bijli, sadak, paani (electricity, roads, water), calls for lifting the AFSPA were coming from four categories: Pakistan, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, terrorists and secessionists.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, who chairs the Unified Headquarters, interjected to ask Lt. Gen. Hasnain to leave a copy of the slide behind, so he could “see where I fit in.”

The presentation made no mention of the fact that the demand for lifting the AFSPA has been supported by Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and forms part of the recommendations of the recently submitted report of three interlocutors

Lt.-Gen. Hasnain claimed that lifting the AFSPA would provoke large-scale disturbances which, in the context of the looming withdrawal of western forces from Afghanistan and the enhanced presence of members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference on the United Nations Security Council, would lead to Jammu and Kashmir's independence.