BJP accuses govt of surrendering to the PDP

THE BJP on Sunday accused the Manmohan Singh government of surrendering to the PDP on the troop pull-out demand, even as it alleged that a quiet reduction in the presence of troops in the border districts of Jammu and Kashmir was already on.

With the Centre coming under pressure from the PDP on the issue, the BJP sent a fact-finding team, under its state unit president Ashok Khajuria, to the border districts to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation prevailing there.

`It seems that the UPA government has buckled under the pressure exerted by Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s PDP. The BJP team was astonished an entire brigade had been ordered to pull out from Budhal in Rajouri district. Without making it official, the exercise of withdrawing troops has already begun in full swing in many areas of the region,’’ BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said here on Sunday.

The party sought to link the issue with the UPA government’s ‘dismal’ track-record on internal security, and warned against any troop-reduction in Jammu and Kashmir.

`The BJP warns the Manmohan Singh government that it should not compromise our national security for political expediency,’’ the party spokesman said, adding, ``there is a definite conspiracy to force Hindus out of the area, which is notorious for cross-border infiltration. The violence at Mendhar in the Poonch district, in which the houses and vehicles of Hindus were attacked, was deliberately organised.’’

With elections in Uttar Pradesh round the corner, the BJP is making plans to use the issue as part of its tirade against the Manmohan Singh government on its internal security ‘failures’. The Centre’s soft approach towards cross-border terrorism had, the party contends, left the country vulnerable.

The BJP fact-finding team, Mr Javadekar said, found that troops were being pulled out even from Kulhand in Doda district, where “only last year, 19 Hindus had been massacred”. Military pickets had also been removed from Shatru, Daschan, Pader, Balesa, Martam, Dharmshala and Puranu in the district.

Similar movements, it alleged, were being reported from the Rajouri and Poonch districts. ``The BJP condemns these development, which is aimed at compromising the country’s security concerns, and asks the government to come clean on the issue,’’ Mr Javadekar said.