Faced with threats, J&K panches plan Delhi dharna

Warn they will stage sit-in at Prime Ministers residence

 All Jammu and Kashmir Panchayat Conference on Monday threatened to lodge a protest dharna at the Prime Minister’s residence in the Capital if the state government failed to ensure security to panches and sarpanches across the Valley.

The warning came in response to the recent threat of United Jihad Council chairman Syed Salah-ud-Din to panches and sarpanches.

“The state government is not serious towards security and empowerment of panchayat members.

We appeal the chief minister and Union home minister to provide security to  sarpanches who are facing security threats,” Imtiyaz Afzal Beigh, provincial president AJKPC told reporters here.

Asking the government to provide security cover to  panches and sarpanches who are under security threats, he clarified that AJKPC did not demand security for all the 33,000 panches and sarpanches.

“We are not anybody’s agents and we don’t belong to any political party. The militants should ask the political leaders — MLAs, MLCs, etc — to resign first,” he said, adding nothing can be achieved by killing 33,000 people of the state.

The AJKPC provincial president said they have already sent a list of the panches and sarpanches who are facing a security threat to the state director general of police.

Government’s apathy

Lambasting the state government for failing the deadline of 24 hours set by the panchayat organisations for providing security to them, spokesperson of the AJKPC, Gh Hassan Punzoo, said several panchayat members have resigned as a fallout of the alleged government apathy.

He said they have received reports of many more panches and sarpaches from south Kashmir district of Pulwama.

“When panches and sarpanches are resigning, we don’t understand what the government is waiting for”, he added.