Rein in militants, Mufti tells Pakistan

Jammu, March 22: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Muhammad Sayeed on Sunday urged Pakistan to control militants who have carried out terror attacks in the state. “If Pakistan wants friendship with us (India), then they will have to help bring peace to the state,” Sayeed told the house after a boisterous opposition demanded a resolution on two terror attacks over the weekend. “Pakistan will have to tell people involved in such attacks that they should desist,” he added, in his first public remarks linking Islamabad with the Friday-Saturday that left a total eight people dead. Two terrorists dressed in military fatigues stormed a police station in Kathua district on Friday and gunned down a policeman, a civilian and two paramilitary personnel before they were shot dead.

On Saturday, another two militants were killed after attacking an army camp in Samba district. These were the first terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir after Sayeed became the chief minister on March 1. After the Kathua attack, Sayeed had pointedly blamed “non-state actors” — an euphemism often used by the Pakistani establishment. As the house met on Sunday for Fince Minister Haseeb Drabu to present budget proposals for 2015-16, tiol Conference and Congress legislators demanded a resolution over the terror attacks. Sayeed told the opposition to respect the house and not to interrupt its proceedings. “This is not the first (terror) attack that has taken place in the state. I am sure peace will soon return as it happened during 2002-07,” he said. Saying the attacks targeted peace in the state, the chief minister requested the speaker that the house should pass a unimous resolution condemning the bloodshed. (IANS)