PDP Asks Ram Madhav To Justify The Newly Declared War

Ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and BJP alliance in Jammu and Kashmir today hit a new low as the PDP chose senior party member and the cabinet Minister Syed Altaf Bukhari to hit out at BJP General Secretary Ram Madhav for justifying the Army’s action of tying a man with military jeep and saying, “in a war and love, everything is fair.”

“The statement of Ram Madhav is seemingly aimed at legitimizing a crime that is internationally abhorred under covenants of human rights”, Bukhari, who is Minister for Education in Mehbooba Mufti led government, said.  

“One fails to understand against whom Mr. Madhav has declared war! Is it a war declared against Kashmiris, who despite all odds cast their votes reaffirming their belief in democracy? Or it is a war declared to satiate the sanguine electoral interests of a particular political party in the country,” Bukhari said.

The statement has been issued by the Minister at a time when Ram Madhav is in the state holding meetings with the state BJP leaders, Ministers and the top police officials as Kashmir Valley is witnessing large scale protests of students, which have forced the government to close all colleges and higher secondary schools.

On Thursday Madhav said that the idea of using a Kashmiri man as a human shield against angry stone pelters in Kashmir by a young officer was the right thing as everything is fair in love and war. Madhav had said there would have been huge amount of loss of human life. 

“He (Army major) tried to avoid that... One can try and take a moral position on what he did was right or wrong. In a war and love, everything is fair”, Madhav said during an interview to a TV channel. 

However, the statement has not gone well with the PDP, which has assured investigation into the incident and the police have filed FIR against the Army.

“Modern nations operate under presumption that in armed conflicts the state must do everything to ensure civilians are not hurt. But, Mr. Madhav seems to be justifying what is unjustifiable under law,” Bukhari, one of the powerful leaders in the ruling PDP, said.

“Some people in the country have unfortunately started arguing that using humans as shields in military operations is justified response to Kashmiri protesters, who hurl stones to give vent to their political aspirations”, the Minister said, adding such statements smack of a “hyper-nationalist environment in the country.”

“Let Mr. Madhav be reminded that no civilized society can afford to use its’ citizens as human shields for military operations,” Bukhari said. 

The Army in a video filmed on April 9, when Srinagar-Budgam constituency was going for bye-polls, is shown tying a man to the front bumper of a military jeep using him as human shield against stone throwing protesters.  The man, later identified as 26 year-old shawl-weaver, Farooq Ahmad Dar, was then driven village after village till evening. On April 14 the video was first posted on Twitter and after former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah posted it, it went viral. “They drove me village after village and you know these roads, I don’t know how I survived”, Dar told Outlook.

Former General Officer Commanding-in-chief, Northern Command, and decorated army officer with both Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) and Ati Vishisht Seva Medal (AVSM), Lt Gen H S Panag, in his tweet had said, “Image of a ‘stone pelter’ tied in front of a jeep as a ‘human shield’, will 4 ever haunt the Indian Army & the nation,”. “When the State starts looking like a mirror image of the terrorists, it spells ominous portents!”