The Member of Parliament, G N Ratanpuri today demanded the return of mortal remains of Maqbool Butt and Afzal Guru for a burial at home. In the start of todays sitting, when different members jumped into the well to agitate on different issues, Mr. Ratanpuri stood up at his seat demanding return of the mortal remains of Butt & Guru to Kashmir. Latter he joined other agitating MPs in front of chairman with a placard reading Collective Conscience Demands Return mortal remains of Butt & Guru. Collective word was crossed in red ink to add sarcasm. The Rajya Sabha MP also wrote a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard. He urged the PM to initiate a sincere and meaningful dialogue, not the one designed to fail. Following is the full text of the letter. Respected Prime Minister, This is in continuation to my letter (dated 21.02.2013), written in the aftermath of Afzal Gurus hanging. Your response (letter dated 25.02.2013) had disappointed me in the first instance, but after a while I discovered (may be invented) a hundred reasons for optimism in your three sentences. We cannot afford to lose hope, so I construed your response as an assurance that a discussion will take place to come to a considered opinion on issues controversial, while the rest will be addressed immediately. We have wasted enough of it and we have enough of time, so waiting for 345 days was not difficult. Today when Kashmir is again demanding the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru, I want to raise certain new points and also repeat some of the already made. Sir, you were not always a politician and going by your own admission you will not be the Prime Minister after a few weeks. But you were always an honest, upright andconsciencious human being. Soon you will be relieved of the burden of political expediency. At a stage of life when nothing is left to achieve, one doesnt run towards new goals, but takes a glance, over the shoulder, to look back. Depending on what one carries from this to the other world, one can take a sigh of relief or one may not be able to. Based on my experience during the last four years in Delhi, may I ask: (i) If dialogue is destined (designed?) to fail, does it not add to hopelessness. On a particular day you said that you had no magic wand to solve Kashmir Issue which the leaders like Nehru and Ms. Gandhi couldnt. Then you appointed some retired bureaucrats and journalists as interlocutors to find a solution. Their report was not even acknowledged and carries a disclaimer from Home Ministry on its website. Why? (ii) You constituted five working groups on Kashmir to suggest measures on Centre-State relations, economic development, cross LoC relations, rehabilitation of militants and destitute families and reviewing the cases of detainees and ensuring good governance. What is the outcome? All the reports are gathering dust. Is dialogue a tool of oppression in the hands of mighty or means to tire out the weak? (iii) Those Kashmiris, whom you want to bring into mainstream, say that nothing has and nothing will come out of dialogue. They may not have any road map to lessen the miseries of people, but the attitude of the government only alienates them further and adds credibility to their stand. If at any moment any party felt the need to redefine Centre-State relations, sincere and transparent bilateral dialogue could easily make it possible, but the mightier party chose deceit and arm twisting. Within a few years of adoption of the Constitution the tallest leaders of the Union boasted of having rendered Article 370 as only a hollow shell, which was considerably eroded, and in their own words, would continue to be eroded and used as a tunnel to extend Centres arm to the farthest corners of Jammu & Kashmir. Thus from 1954 to 1994, 94 of 97 entries of the Union List were extended to our autonomous state. Last year on 11th of March, when the agitation for return of Afzal Gurus mortal remains was at its peak, Home Minister of India in reply to a scribes question categorically ruled out any such possibility. He quoted the Jail manual body of a convict, if not claimed by his legal heirs at the time of execution, should be buried by jail staff and once buried it cannot be exhumed. When confronted by the fact that Gurus wife or relatives received the intimation regarding his execution two days after the event and Home Ministers claim of having sent the intimation to family in time through police was falsified by the DGP and Post Master General of J&K, he with a mischievous smile replied secret nahi rakhtay to ye kaam nahi hona tha. I asked him the next day why Afzal Guru and his family were not treated like any other Indian. Why a Home Minister had to resort to lies and what compelled him to rule out the return of the dead body on a shamelessly fabricated excuse? I got no reply as he chose silence, but I believe your government owes an explanation to every citizen of India. Politicians unabashedly sacrifice the national interests for their political interests and Kashmir continues to be used a pawn on the chess board of electoral politics. Hanging of Afzal Guru and the post execution jingoism has failed to yield targeted political dividends for your Party or dilute, the Moditva factor, but it has sabotaged the efforts for peace and reconciliation in Kashmir. One day you were gracious enough to tell me that you watched my TV discussions regularly and you desired to meet me frequently. But when you realised that I was not another career politician, you decided to avoid any eye contact with me, whenever we had a chance meeting. Shying away from real issues and expecting the Kashmiri representatives to read from the formula scripts will not help. Issues are to be addressed. If we cannot have a time bound dialogue, an indefinite dialogue too cannot help. Above all sincerity is a pre-requisite. A dialogue among equals, not between the master and the lackey, must continue till we learn to live together in peace and prosperity. Expectations of accommodation should not be from the weaker party alone, the stronger party must show a bigger heart. If you can evolve a consensus among different political parties on the nuclear deal, why should the consensus elude you on the recommendations of working groups within your own party. There can be no reconciliation without truth and justice. One can forgive and forget, but only after the guilty are identified. Some army personnel killed five innocents, passing them as killers of innocent sikhs of Chattisinghpora, why should the government fail to identify the real culprits and why should it protect the army personnel involved in Pathribal killings, even after a judicial commission and CBI have indicted them. If terrorists can be exchanged in Kandhar for innocent Indian lives, if marines of Italy can be guaranteed no death penalty before the trial of murder begins, why refuse to return the mortal remains of Afzal guru and Maqbool Bhat for a burial at home and as a healing balm to the much wronged kith & kin. Home Minister of India had to have the ignominy of lying, caught lying and repeat lying to hang Afzal Guru secretly and out of turn. He said Kaam karna tha so he had to lie, his kaarnama has brought only shame to haunt the democratic Indians for a long time. The burden of this blot can be lessened only by delivering the mortal remains to the legal heirs without further delay. The son and wife of Guru and relatives of Maqbool Bhat must be saved from further agony and Kashmir from further turmoil on this count. With profound regards. Yours sincerely, G. N. Ratanpuri
Posted on: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:41:32 +0000
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